{"id":27,"date":"2019-10-09T15:33:13","date_gmt":"2019-10-09T15:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2019\/?p=27"},"modified":"2019-10-21T15:00:43","modified_gmt":"2019-10-21T15:00:43","slug":"mapping-genome-promises-to-enhance-ancient-grain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2019\/mapping-genome-promises-to-enhance-ancient-grain\/","title":{"rendered":"Mapping Genome Promises  to Enhance Ancient Grain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Humanity has finally gotten to know one of its oldest, most water-efficient crops on a genetic level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nebraska\u2019s James Schnable and an international team have sequenced and mapped proso millet\u2019s genome. This information is essential to increasing the drought-resistant crop\u2019s yields in Nebraska\u2019s Panhandle and semiarid regions worldwide, where population growth foreshadows food shortages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because millets can grow in poor soils and need less water than other cereal crops, several have become popular among subsistence farmers in ever-hotter, drier swaths of Africa and Asia. But millet\u2019s relatively low yields and traits that make harvesting difficult limit its viability as a food, feed or fuel staple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/190702_Schnable_104_1-1-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-216\"\/><figcaption>James Schnable<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>To inform future breeding efforts, Schnable and colleagues sequenced more than 90 percent of the genetic code in proso millet, a species grown mostly in the American Great Plains, northern China and parts of Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The ability to pinpoint the location, composition and size of proso\u2019s genes should help researchers rapidly improve traits and tailor varieties to climates around the world, said Schnable, associate professor of agronomy and horticulture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>\u201cThis will have a huge potential impact on the rural economy of the region.\u201d<\/p><cite>Dipak Santra<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s potential to grow it on a much larger scale and take a significant bite out of the amount of additional grain we need to meet the demand for  feed and food and ethanol,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Figure-2-Extracted-1-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-220\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Nebraska\u2019s farmers will benefit from that genome-guided work, said Dipak Santra, associate professor of agronomy and horticulture at the university\u2019s Panhandle Research and Extension Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Researchers reported their findings in <em>Nature Communications<\/em>. Schnable\u2019s collaborators were from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Iowa State University, Henan University, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University, Purdue University, Dryland Genetics LLC and Data2Bio LLC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Improving Crops Through Genotyping and Phenotyping\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xKBOvsi3bo0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis will have a huge potential impact on the rural economy of the region,\u201d said Santra, the lone public-sector proso millet breeder in the Western Hemisphere. \u201cProso millet\u2019s direct value to (the semiarid High Plains) is $45 million per year, but considering its benefits to the dryland production systems, its total value to the region\u2019s economy could be closer to a billion dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Humanity has finally gotten to know one of its oldest, most water-efficient crops on a genetic level. Nebraska\u2019s James Schnable and an international team have sequenced and mapped proso millet\u2019s genome. This information is essential to increasing the drought-resistant crop\u2019s yields in Nebraska\u2019s Panhandle and semiarid regions worldwide, where population growth foreshadows food shortages. Because [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":88,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[100,96,97,40,37,71,95,98,101,102,99,103,55],"class_list":["post-27","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-agriculture","tag-agronomy-and-horticulture","tag-dipak-santra","tag-food-energy-and-water-systems","tag-food-security","tag-health","tag-james-schnable","tag-panhandle-research-and-extension-center","tag-plant-genetics","tag-plant-science","tag-proso-millet","tag-rural-issues","tag-water","entry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":295,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions\/295"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}