Navigating the maize of Short-season ancestry

Abstract

Preliminary statistical analysis suggest that the short-season germplasm may have a broader group of founders than originally proposed by Mikel and Dudley (2006). A series of yield trials using Early, Intermediate, and Late flowering lines were conducted by Genomes to Fields. Due to selection for earliness, it is accepted that the ancestry of the Early group is narrow. However, the Early group exhibited the highest additive genetic variation for grain yield. This led to the hypothesis, the modern early flowering germplasm is different and has different founder lines than the corn belt dent (CBD) germplasm. A sample of short-season and CBD lines were used to determine the relationship of the CBD with the short-season germplasm and what its most likely founders are. The results in this study suggest two things. First, that the short-season and CBD germplasm are different and that they have alternative founder lines than the ones proposed.