Genetic diversity and its use in under-utilized crops of the developing world.
Modern crop improvement has led to the severe narrowing of germplasm diversity, both within species of crops and in the sets of crops that are now extensively utilized. Highly productive and stress-adapted cereals like tef ( Eragrostis tef ), finger millet ( Eleusine indica ) and foxtail millet ( Setaria italica ) are often replaced by less-adapted species like maize and wheat because of marketing forces. These "minor cereals" tend to be vital mainly to subsistence farmers in Africa and other parts of the developing world, so they have received little research attention. We are working on three subsistence cereals: tef, finger millet, and highland rice. Because they are so under-studied, the potential for significant improvement is much higher than for intensively studied/improved species like maize or lowland rice. Our efforts are mainly associated with studies of genetic diversity, and particularly any diversity that associates with useful agronomic properties like abiotic or biotic stress tolerance. A major component of this project involves the transfer of molecular technologies into developing world laboratories.
Recent related publications :
Dida MM, Srinivasachary, Ramakrishnan S, Bennetzen JL, Gale MD, Devos KM. (2007) The genetic map of finger millet, Eleusine coracana. Theor Appl Genet. Pub Med Link
Gorantla M, Babu PR, Lachagari VB, Reddy AM, Wusirika R, Bennetzen JL, Reddy AR. (2007) Identification of stress-responsive genes in an indica rice (Oryza sativa L.) using ESTs generated from drought-stressed seedlings. J. Exp. Bot. 58(2):253-65 Pub Med Link
Ghebru , B., Schmidt, R. J., and J. L. Bennetzen (2002) Genetic diversity of Eritrean sorghum landraces assessed with Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR) markers. Theor . Appl . Genet . 105:229-236. Pub Med link
Reddy, A. R., W. Ramakrishna, A. C. Sekhar , N. Ithal , P. R. Babu , M. F. Bonaldo , M. B. Soares , and J. L. Bennetzen (2002) Novel genes are enriched in normalized cDNA libraries from drought stressed seedlings of indica rice ( Oryza sativa L. cv . Nagina 22). Genome 45:204-211. Pub Med link