The presence of lignin reduces the quality of lignocellulosic biomass for forage materials and feedstock for biofuels. In C4 grasses, the brown midrib phenotype has been linked to mutations to genes in the monolignol biosynthesis pathway. For example, the Bmr6 gene in sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) has been previously shown to encode cinnamyl alcohol dehydrogenase (CAD), which catalyzes the final st...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS In some dicotyledonous leaves and leaflets, the secondary veins run more-or-less straight to the margins and have well-defined lengths. For a given half-lamina of length L, an equation, previously proposed, relates the lengths of these veins, p, to the distances, l, between the leaf tip and their insertions on the midrib: p = B2(x+y)l(x)(L - l)(y)/L(x+y-1), where B, x and y ...

A novel method of harvesting whole-plant corn silage, shredlage, may increase kernel processing and physically effective fiber. Improved fiber effectiveness may be especially advantageous when feeding brown midrib (BMR) corn hybrids, which have reduced lignin content. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of feeding TMR containing BMR corn shredlage (SHRD) compared with BMR co...

A brown midrib (BMR) sorghum pasture was compared with normal sorghum for its effects on performance of Holstein cows in midlactation in terms of milk production and composition at grazing over three periods (Period 1: 20/01 to 31/01, Period 2: 17/02 to 28/02, Period 3: 19/03 to 30/03). Forty Holstein cows were grouped according to pre-experimental milk production (22.4 ± 4.2 kg/d milk), live w...

The correct identification of plants is a common necessity not only to researchers but also to the lay public. Recently, computational methods have been employed to facilitate this task, however, there are few studies front of the wide diversity of plants occurring in the world. This study proposes to analyse images obtained from cross-sections of leaf midrib using fractal descriptors. These de...

Funnell-Harris, D. L., Sattler, S. E., and Pedersen, J. F. 2014. Response of Fusarium thapsinum to sorghum brown midrib lines and to phenolic metabolites. Plant Dis. 98:1300-1308. Sorghum lines were bred for reduced lignin for cellulosic bioenergy uses, through the incorporation of brown midrib (bmr)6 or -12 into two backgrounds (RTx430 and Wheatland) as either single or doublemutant lines. Whe...

To improve sorghum for bioenergy and forage uses, brown midrib (bmr)6 and -12 near-isogenic genotypes were developed in different sorghum backgrounds. The bmr6 and bmr12 grain had significantly reduced colonization by members of the Gibberella fujikuroi species complex compared with the wild type, as detected on two semiselective media. Fusarium spp. were identified using sequence analysis of a...