Objective 1: Physiological Mechanisms of drought tolerance.
• Publish peer-reviewed manuscripts on novel insights into the plasticity of the primary physiological traits (WUE, CT, CW, and NDFA), and the implications associated with differences in plasticity relative to performance in different environmental conditions.
• Establish the extent and types of interrelationships that exist among the primary drought-tolerance stress traits.
• Publish manuscripts documenting underlying physiological mechanisms that confer genotypic differences in CW, CT, WUE, and NDFA.
• Identify putative new mechanisms for soybean drought tolerance including hydraulic conductivity and leaf anatomical differences.
Objective 2: Identification and confirmation of putative drought tolerance loci.
• Communicate results of QTL mapping of WUE, CT, CW, and NDFA to the soybean research community through presentations at meetings, reports, and publications.
• Identify novel loci putatively associated with plasticity of each primary physiological trait and communicate that information through presentations and publications.
• Share identity and locations of confirmed genes (QTLs) for CW, CT, WUE, and NDFA to the soybean community through meetings, reports, and publications.
Objective 3: Germplasm and population development.
For current F6-derived WUE lines (PI 567201D x DS25-4):
• Document results of 2018 irrigated yield trials comparing high WUE lines versus low WUE lines through scientific presentations, reports, and publications by 2019.
• Identify the best WUE lines based on irrigated and non-irrigated trials in 2019/2020 and enter those lines for Regional Uniform testing by 2020.
• Determine the “realized heritability” of the WUE trait based on 5 years of pedigree selection for WUE and 3 years of replicated testing of the resulting lines in multiple states (AR, AZ, MO, and MS) by 2020.