Next steps

I am pleased to formally announce that I've been an awarded a three-year NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, as part of the National Plant Genome Initiative! I'll be working with John McKay at Colorado State University (http://www.mckaylab.colostate.edu/) and collaborating with researchers at the International Rice Research Institute (http://irri.org/). An abstract describing my proposed research is under the cut.

Rice is a water-intensive crop and the primary calorie source for many developing countries. As global demand for water increases, so will the need for rice varieties that require less water to grow. This project will model the interaction of genotype and environment to predict water use in rice, providing vital information to breeders and potentially contributing to the development of new drought-tolerant rice varieties. The project is in collaboration with researchers at the International Rice Research Institute and includes training in applied agricultural research. A diverse group of undergraduate researchers will participate in the project and will be trained as the next generation of plant breeders. Together, the proposed activities will provide the basis for an independent research program that uses fundamental research to address global needs.

This project will tackle the "grand challenge" of predicting phenotype from genotype in specific environments by building and validating a physiological model that incorporates genotype effects. The two major objectives are (1) to use high-throughput phenotyping data from a new, highly recombinant rice population (Global MAGIC) to identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) underlying water use physiology in two soil moisture environments, and (2) to use these QTL as parameters in a model of water use physiology. The model will be validated by predicting phenotypes that are produced by the novel genotypes grown in specific environments. Evaluating the model will provide insight into the interactions among alleles and environmental factors affecting water use physiology in plants. All of the project data will be available to the public via the Dryad Digital Data Repository, and the Global MAGIC population is already freely available to rice breeding programs through the International Rice Research Institute.