The Specific Objectives of the Project focus on Intellectual Merit and the Broader Impacts of strategy.
Objective 1: Phenome analysis of a population of rice genotypes of value for US rice production,
comprising japonica accessions and US cultivars, by conducting high night temperature (HNT)
screens in the greenhouse and field to quantify responses for tolerance phenotypic parameters.
Objective 2: Genome wide association study of the japonica based diversity panel to identify
favorable alleles for HNT tolerance traits, and evaluate molecular markers in US cultivars, breeding
lines and segregating populations for their contribution to yield and quality traits.
Objective 3: ‘Omics’ data generation from developing rice grain tissue under HNT, for transcriptome using RNA-Seq of mRNA and small RNA, proteome and metabolome, from representative tolerant and sensitive genotypes, and integrate information into gene networks to predict candidate genes from GWAS and identify the underlying biological mechanisms.
Objective 4: Validation of candidate genes for grain yield and quality by transformation into US rice
cultivars and genome editing using established methods, followed by testing for specific yield and
quality traits
For research overview, please visit https://rice-hnt-stress.uark.edu/research-overview/