TY - JOUR
T1 - Nitrogen use efficiency and the genetic variation of maize expired plant variety protection germplasm
AU - Mastrodomenico, Adriano T.
AU - Hendrix, C. Cole
AU - Below, Frederick E.
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgments: This research was made possible with partial funding from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture project NC1200 “Regulation of Photosynthetic Processes” and the Illinois AES project 802-908. The authors wish to thank Juliann Seebauer for her assistance in manuscript preparation, and past and present staff of the crop physiology laboratory for their support.
Funding Information:
This research was made possible with partial funding from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture project NC1200 “Regulation of Photosynthetic Processes” and the Illinois AES project 802-908. The authors wish to thank Juliann Seebauer for her assistance in manuscript preparation, and past and present staff of the crop physiology laboratory for their support.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2018/1
Y1 - 2018/1
N2 - Nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) in maize (Zea mays L.) is an important trait to optimize yield with minimal input of nitrogen (N) fertilizer. Expired Plant Variety Protection (ex-PVP) Act-certified germplasm may be an important genetic resource for public breeding sectors. The objectives of this research were to evaluate the genetic variation of N-use traits and to characterize maize ex-PVP inbreds that are adapted to the U.S. Corn Belt for NUE performance. Eighty-nine ex-PVP inbreds (36 stiff stalk synthetic (SSS), and 53 non-stiff stalk synthetic (NSSS)) were genotyped using 26,769 single-nucleotide polymorphisms, then 263 single-cross maize hybrids derived from these inbreds were grown in eight environments from 2011 to 2015 at two N fertilizer rates (0 and 252 kg N ha–1) and three replications. Genetic utilization of inherent soil nitrogen and the yield response to N fertilizer were stable across environments and were highly correlated with yield under low and high N conditions, respectively. Cluster analysis identified inbreds with desirable NUE performance. However, only one inbred (PHK56) was ranked in the top 10% for yield under both N-stress and high N conditions. Broad-sense heritability across 12 different N-use traits varied from 0.11 to 0.77, but was not associated with breeding value accuracy. Nitrogen-stress tolerance was negatively correlated with the yield increase from N fertilizer.
AB - Nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) in maize (Zea mays L.) is an important trait to optimize yield with minimal input of nitrogen (N) fertilizer. Expired Plant Variety Protection (ex-PVP) Act-certified germplasm may be an important genetic resource for public breeding sectors. The objectives of this research were to evaluate the genetic variation of N-use traits and to characterize maize ex-PVP inbreds that are adapted to the U.S. Corn Belt for NUE performance. Eighty-nine ex-PVP inbreds (36 stiff stalk synthetic (SSS), and 53 non-stiff stalk synthetic (NSSS)) were genotyped using 26,769 single-nucleotide polymorphisms, then 263 single-cross maize hybrids derived from these inbreds were grown in eight environments from 2011 to 2015 at two N fertilizer rates (0 and 252 kg N ha–1) and three replications. Genetic utilization of inherent soil nitrogen and the yield response to N fertilizer were stable across environments and were highly correlated with yield under low and high N conditions, respectively. Cluster analysis identified inbreds with desirable NUE performance. However, only one inbred (PHK56) was ranked in the top 10% for yield under both N-stress and high N conditions. Broad-sense heritability across 12 different N-use traits varied from 0.11 to 0.77, but was not associated with breeding value accuracy. Nitrogen-stress tolerance was negatively correlated with the yield increase from N fertilizer.
KW - Expired plant variety protection (ex-PVP)
KW - Maize
KW - Nitrogen stress
KW - Nitrogen use efficiency (NUE)
KW - U.S. corn belt germplasm
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U2 - 10.3390/agriculture8010003
DO - 10.3390/agriculture8010003
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85040232879
VL - 8
JO - Agriculture (Switzerland)
JF - Agriculture (Switzerland)
SN - 2077-0472
IS - 1
M1 - 3
ER -