STORY LEAD:
Genetic Help on the Way for Flood-Prone Corn
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ARS News Service
Agricultural Research Service, USDA
Linda McGraw, (309) 681-6530, lmcgraw@asrr.arsusda.gov
April 26, 1999
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April is the cruellest month for farmers when heavy spring rains drown
crops. But Agricultural Research Service scientists are working on a
built-in genetic life preserver that may help corn survive flooding.
That genetic flood insurance--good news for farmers who face added costs in
labor, seed and fertilizer to replant--comes from flood-tolerant corn
breeding lines discovered by ARS scientist Martin M. Sachs in Urbana,
Illinois.
Sachs, based at the University of Illinois, has identified flood-tolerant
South American plants that live up to three times longer under water than
most North American corn varieties. He found the flood-resistant corn while
screening 400 genetic land races from the International Maize and Wheat
Improvement Center in Mexico City. He crossed the water-tolerant lines from
South America with normal inbred North American lines. The results: half of
the resulting corn plants survived flooding, after the North American
parents had died.
Sachs would like to determine the genetic, physiological, biochemical and
molecular differences these flood tolerant inbreds have and ultimately
isolate the gene or genes involved. So far, he's identified 10 different
breeding lines, each of which shows a simple dominant trait for increased
flood tolerance.
For now, he uses traditional breeding techniques to cross the desired trait
into American corn lines. But he envisions that genetic engineering will
allow him to fortify corn with even more flood tolerance from rice.
Sachs is director of ARS' Maize Genetics Cooperation Stock Center, part of
the National Plant Germplasm System supported by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture. ARS is the chief research agency of the USDA.
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Scientific contact: Martin Sachs, ARS University of Illinois, Urbana, Ill.,
phone (217) 244-0864, fax (217) 333-6064, msachs@uiuc.edu.
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