1. Develop and characterize breeding lines of Midwestern and Southern maturity that are slow-wilting, continue to fix Nitrogen, and show superior yield under drought.
• Evaluate 7000 field plots to identify slow-wilting and/or high yielding
breeding lines under drought in NC, AR, KS, NE and MN.
• Test 20 advanced drought tolerant breeding lines in regional trials to gather
data for possible release variety release.
• Release breeding line N05-7432 as the first drought tolerant cultivar.
2. Identify genes that enhance slow wilting, nitrogen fixation, and yield under stress using QTL and NIL techniques.
• Initiate marker assisted selection for 3 QTL from PI 471938 and 5 QTL from PI 416937 and validate DNA mapping results for slow wilting trait.
• Develop near isogenic lines for prolific rooting and begin validation of QTLs.
• Continue assaying a QTL population for improved N fixation.
3. Identify physiological and morphological basis for drought tolerance; develop improved screening methods, make recommendations for deployment.
• Determine aquaporin protein relation to slow wilting, identify aquaporin genes. This work is attracting the interest of scientists from many crops
• Continue identifying deep rooting soybean types in the field.
• Assay approximately 2000 plant samples from field experiments for N concentration, ureide concentration, nodule number/size, and/or carbon isotope discrimination.
4. Identify and characterize resistance to environmental stresses which may be associated with drought: flood tolerance; resistance to soil deficiencies in Iron and Manganese. Compare slow-wilting types for flood tolerance and flood tolerant types for slow wilting. Identify QTL for resistance to Mn deficiency and IDC.
• Compete DNA (QTL) mapping of resistance to Mn deficiency in a population of Cook x SC97-1821. Validate the economic importance of resistance to Mn deficiency in affected soils.
• Continue flood tolerance screening, map DNA markers for flood tolerance.
• Continue IDC screening.
5. Aid industry through tech transfer of drought technology from the public sector.
• Continue extensive collaboration with private industry to test the efficacy of USB derived drought tolerance genes in elite commercial varieties.
• Train private breeders in drought tolerance breeding methodology.
• Transfer desirable genetic materials to industry via Materials transfer Agreements (MTAs) and germplasm and variety releases.
• Plan formal workshops with private companies re drought tolerance.
• Continue speaking engagements to increase visibility of USB drought work.