Tag: GWAS

Genome wide association studies (GWAS) identify genomic loci associated with a specific trait. However, these loci often contain many genes, so selecting which to investigate further can be tricky. To improve this Whitt, et al. developed a program called FiReMAGE (filtering results of multi-species,…

Drought stress is a major problem and can cause large reductions in yield. Water productivity is the amount of yield per unit of water used, hence a higher water productivity is associated with more drought tolerance. Here, Zaïm et al. discovered three genomic loci associated with increased water productivity…

Witchweeds (Striga spp.) are parasitic plants. Like other weeds, they compete with food crops, but they do so very efficiently by penetrating host tissues and forming vascular connections. Through this effective extraction of nutrients and photosynthate from their hosts, Striga can literally wipe out…

Ella Katz1 and Dan J. Kliebenstein1,2. 1Department of Plant Sciences, University of California Davis, Davis, CA, USA 2DynaMo Center of Excellence, University of Copenhagen, Denmark Background: Nitrogen is an essential element for plant growth and development. Nitrogen availability and form…

This is an interesting paper that grabbed my attention from the very first line: “Tomatoes are the second most valuable crop in the USA”. Of course, a key trait in these important fruits is their flavor, something the Harry Klee team at the University of Florida have been studying for years. Here,…

Root system architecture (RSA) is a complex trait that directly or indirectly influences most aspects of plant survival, largely through its effects on nutrient and water uptake as well as support and anchoring. Its hidden nature has made it harder to study than the architecture of the shoot, and led…

Zhou, Kusmec, Mirnezami et al. reveal how genetically determined measurement bias affects the accuracy of high-throughput phenotyping and genetic analysis. The Plant Cell (2021) https://doi.org/10.1093/plcell/koab134 By Yan Zhou Iowa State University Background: The accuracy of trait measurement…

Root research got a boost from Arabidopsis grown on Petri plants, but what do you do if you study something bigger, or want to see how roots grow in soil? Zheng et al. developed a new set of tools they call CREAMD-COFE [Core Root Excavation using Compressed-air (to extract the roots from soil), and Core…