Project Number: 3622-21000-027-06
Project Type: Grant

Start Date: Jan 07, 2007
End Date: Aug 14, 2010

Objective:
1. Enhance an existing graduate course on the Ecology of Grazing Land Systems with guest lectures from members of the plant biotechnology industry. A unique aspect will be the use of Sporobolus accessions as forage grasses to provide hands-on training in plant performance trials in an associated lab course. 2. Identify and functionally test key regulatory and signaling components in model plant and target crop species.

Approach:
1. The graduate course at MU is a field-oriented course taking graduate students into diverse grazing land ecosystems across several states. The approach we are taking to enhance this course is to take the students to the UNR site for a focused and extensive hands on assessment of Sporobolus accessions grown in the field arid lands ecosystems. 2. The approach is to establish, in conjunction with the P.I., transgenic Arabidopsis lines over-expressing a selection of dehydration candidate genes as an initial step in the functional testing of strategies for improved drought tolerance in target crop species, in particular maize. The main approach we will take in functional testing is to use a chronic stress assay coupled with phonological and physiological assessments.