Grass architecture

Margarita Mauro-Herrera, John Hodge, Yisel Carrillo

Plant architecture is a 'trait' that continually develops for each plant, responding to both developmental imperatives and environmental influences.

Morphological analyses, including PCA dimension reducing techniques, suggest that there are three different axes of genetic control, being height, primary tiller production, and secondary tiller and axillary branch release. This accords with the genetic data, and suggests a simple way to parse grass architecture. Both sorghum and Setaria mapping populations appear to follow this model, but we have yet to test diversity collections.

Govindarajulu, R., A.N. Henderson, Y. Xiao, S.R. Chaluvadi, M. Mauro-Herrera, M.L. Siddoway, C.Whipple, J.L. Bennetzen, K.M. Devos, A.N. Doust, J.S. Hawkins. 2020. Integration of high-density genetic mapping with transcriptome analysis uncovers numerous agronomic QTL and reveals candidate genes for the control of tillering in sorghum. Genes Genomes Genetics. (accepted)
Gehan, M.A., N. Fahlgren, A. Abbasi, J.C. Berry, S.T. Callen, L. Chavez, A.N. Doust, M.J. Feldman, K.B. Gilbert, J.G. Hodge, J. Steen Hoyer, A. Lin, S. Liu, C. Lizárraga, A. Lorence, M. Miller, E. Platon, M. Tessman, T. Sax. 2017. PlantCV v2: Image analysis software for high-throughput plant phenotyping. PeerJ. 5:e4088 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4088.
Mauro-Herrera, M. and A.N. Doust. 2016. Development and genetic control of plant architecture and biomass in the panicoid grass, Setaria. PLoS ONE 11(3): e0151346. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0151346.