Hybrids such as maize (Zea mays) or domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris) grow bigger and
stronger than their parents. This is also true for allopolyploids such as wheat (Triticum spp.) …

Improved genotypes developed by plant breeding remain pivotal to global food security. In
the wake of ever-increasing human population, declining agricultural resources and the …

Nested association mapping (NAM) offers power to resolve complex, quantitative traits to
their causal loci. The maize NAM population, consisting of 5,000 recombinant inbred lines …

Heterosis refers to the phenomenon that progeny of diverse varieties of a species or crosses
between species exhibit greater biomass, speed of development, and fertility than both …

Dissecting the genetic architecture of complex traits is an ongoing challenge for geneticists.
Two complementary approaches for genetic mapping, linkage mapping and association …

Molecular markers are widely used in plant genetic research and breeding. Single
Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) are currently the marker of choice due to their large …

With increasing demand for novel traits in crop breeding, the plant research community
faces the challenge of quantitatively analyzing the structure and function of large numbers of …

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are a standard approach for studying the
genetics of natural variation. A major concern in GWAS is the need to account for the …

Maize is an important crop species of high genetic diversity. We identified and genotyped
several million sequence polymorphisms among 27 diverse maize inbred lines and …

Agricultural production faces a Herculean challenge to feed the increasing global
population. Food production systems need to deliver more with finite land and water …