HEARTLAND PLANT INNOVATIONS — Department of Agriculture SBIR Phase I: Sorghum acres in the United States and around the world are declining. If this trend is to

Description

Sorghum acres in the United States and around the world are declining. If this trend is to be reversed, new tools for sorghum crop improvement are needed. Sorghum is a naturally drought-tolerant, heat-resistant crop that can play an important role in meeting ever-increasing global needs for food, feed, and fuel. However, sorghum lags behind other crops in making progress on breeding for yield increase and trait enhancement. Heartland Plant Innovations proposes to put sorghum improvement on a new trajectory by developing a robust system for producing and utilizing Sorghum Doubled Haploids (SDHs) in breeding and genetics. Developing a Sorghum Doubled Haploid Breeding System will offer a greatly accelerated route to new improved hybrids, increased yields for farmers, and better food production in the U.S. and around the world.HPI & #39;s SDH project will identify pollinators cabable of inducing haploid embryo development in a wide range of sorghum gentypes and build a DH breeding system around the use of these pollinators. Once this technology is developed, public and private sorghum breeding and crop improvement programs will have a new and faster way of delivering valuable sorghum hybrids that will improve the lives of sorghum farmers and people who depend on their crops. Sorghum Doubled Haploids will deliver true-breeding recombinant lines for breeders in a single plant generation, cutting in half the time required to give farmers higher yielding, healthier sorghum hybrids.