Crop Tech Corner

Sorghum Yields Get a Boost; Wheat Rust Resistance Pinpointed

Emily Unglesbee
By  Emily Unglesbee , DTN Staff Reporter
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Sorghum yields could swell in the future, thanks to new experimental lines that significantly out-produce current varieties. (DTN photo by Nick Scalise)

ST. LOUIS (DTN) -- This bi-monthly column condenses the latest news in the field of crop technology, research and products.

PUSHING SORGHUM

Thanks to two new research efforts, sorghum yields could climb in the years to come. With funding from the Kansas Grain Sorghum Commission, Kansas State researchers have produced experimental sorghum lines that are hitting impressive yield numbers. In 2013, the average for dryland sorghum in the Manhattan, Kan., region was 134 bushels per acre; dryland corn in the area averaged 184 bushels. According to a university news release, some hybrids from the experimental sorghum lines topped 200 bushels in dryland trials that same year, out-competing commercial varieties and many dryland corn yields in the area. The researchers are offering the new pollinator and seed parent lines to commercial seed companies. You can read more about these new sorghum varieties in the university press release here: http://bit.ly/….

Everything is bigger in Texas -- and sorghum appears to be no exception. According to a USDA press release, researchers from the Agricultural Research Service's Cropping Systems Research Laboratory in Lubbock have produced a mutant sorghum line that produces 30% to 40% more seeds. A sorghum plant typically possesses two types of spikelets: sessile spikelets, which are fertile and grain-producing, and pedicellate spikelets, which generally do not produce seed. The Lubbock team induced a mutation in sorghum that produced plants in which spikelets of both varieties produced seed. With all the plants' spikelets generating seeds, the mutant sorghum line's panicles are wider, thicker, longer and filled with significantly more grain. The mutation is stable, and researchers hope that by breeding the mutants with elite, conventional varieties, the improved grain yield can be passed into new, higher-yielding sorghum lines. You can find the USDA press release about the Lubbock research here: http://1.usa.gov/….

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GENES TEAM UP AGAINST WHEAT RUST

University of Nebraska researchers have pinpointed the source of a rare genetic resistance to a particularly virulent type of wheat stem rust, Ug99. Ug99 is a mutated version of stem rust that emerged in 1999 in Uganda. Its ability to quickly mutate and overcome previously rust-resistant wheat varieties has made it a devastating destroyer of wheat yields in Africa and the Middle East.

One cultivar alone, a wheat variety called S2, has held up against Ug99, and now UNL researchers understand its ability to persist. According to a university news release, the researchers pinpointed not one, but two genes that allow the wheat plants to stave off the damaging disease. One gene, S2, is the variety's namesake and was known by researchers. The second gene is more mysterious but appears to protect the plant in its seedling stage. The university researchers are zeroing in on its location, the news release noted.

This two-gene weaponry makes S2 an exponentially stronger combatant against Ug99, says P. Stephen Baenziger, a UNL plant scientist and the study's co-author. "Let's say you have a mutation that allows something to become virulent to your gene one in a million times," he explained in the news release. "When you have two genes, the idea would be that a mutation that overcomes both genes happens only once in a million multiplied by a million." The researchers hope that mapping S2's genetic resistance to Ug99 will lead to the development of varieties with better resistance to the disease, which has recently crossed the Arabian Peninsula and is headed for Pakistan, Afghanistan and India.

To read more about the UNL gene discovery, see the news release here: http://bit.ly/…. Read more about Ug99 here: http://1.usa.gov/….

MIXING COVER CROPS AND CATTLE

A seven-year study from the USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) confirmed that grazing cattle on cover crops has no negative effects on the health of the soil and is most likely a net gain to the system. In the past, some producers have worried that letting cattle trod over a carpet of cover crops and feast on the plants would promote soil compaction and lower the amount of nitrogen and carbon that an untouched cover crop residue would supply the soil. These fears now appear unfounded, according to an ARS press release.

ARS ecologist Alan Franzluebbers conducted the long-term study in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. For seven years, Franzluebbers and his team grew winter and summer grains and planted cover crops during the off-season. Their plots were designed to compare cover crops in a no-till system, in a tillage system, in a grazing system, and in a system with no grazing. In the grazing system, one cow-calf pair per 4 acres -- a relatively low grazing population -- was let loose on the cover crops to graze. Periodic soil samples taken from the plots revealed that this level of grazing did not affect soil compaction or the level of organic matter in the soil. The forage supplied a good source of feed for the cattle, and the organic matter lost to grazing was most likely regained by the cattle's generous manure deposits, Franzluebbers concluded. The plots also confirmed that the no-till system held more carbon and nitrogen than the tilled system.

You can find the ARS press release here: http://1.usa.gov/….

Emily Unglesbee can be reached at emily.unglesbee@dtn.com.

Follow Emily Unglesbee on Twitter @Emily_Unglesbee.

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Emily Unglesbee