| Affiliations: | DeBakey Executive Research Leadership Program |
| Project Leader: | Usha Pedireddi usha_pedireddi@tamu.edu Soil and Crop Sciences |
| Faculty Mentor: | Muthukumar Bagavathiannan, Ph.D. |
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Meeting Times:
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TBD |
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Team Size:
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6
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| Open Spots: | 0 |
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Special Opportunities:
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291 research credit hours are available with our program. Opportunities like field exploration, Greenhouse experimentation and learning new plant breeding techniques; students can get chances to attend conferences in relevant subject area such as Annual meetings conducted by Agronomy society of America and Crop Science Society of America and some Weed sciences societies like WSSA (Weed Science Society of America) and SWSS (Sothern Weed Science Society)
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Team Needs:
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Self driven and motivated students towards agricultural projects, welcome to join my team |
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Description:
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We are leading into the investigation of the study of gene flow in cultivated sorghum and its wild relatives like johnsongrass and shattercane. We have established three hybrid nurseries in the field to evaluate the interspecific and intraspecific gene flow between the hybrid progenies evolved from the crosses. We are establishing RIL’s field study to understand the genetic control of gametic factors affecting the interspecific hybridization, which to determine certain chromosomal locations of grain sorghum contributes to hybridization between these two species. We are also investigating the production of 2n gametes in sorghum pollen in this interspecific hybridization, which gives more insights into the fitness of the hybrid progeny due to its ploidy level. The goal of our project is to develop a thorough understanding of the characteristics and genetic determinants of gene flow between crop sorghum and johnsongrass in both directions (sorghum to johnsongrass as well as johnsongrass to sorghum), and determine the fitness of those F1 hybrids derived from these crosses and evaluate their potential how they dominate under competitive environments |