Structure of maize (Zea mays L.) rhizosphere bacteria was evaluated to explore the feasibility of identifying novel rhizosphere bacteria using culture-independent method based on direct amplification and analysis of 16S rRNA gene (rRNA) sequences and especially to obtain a better understanding of bacterial community structure and diversity from maize. A total of 274 sequences were analyzed and ...

The United States is the largest producer of maize in the world. Maize-soybean is the most prominent crop rotation in the Midwestern United States. Glyphosate-resistant volunteer maize is a problem weed not only in soybean, but also in continuous maize or sugarbeet rotations. Storm damage, harvesting problems, poor stalk quality, and insect damage, among other factors, can lead to kernel and ea...

BACKGROUND The species Zea mays includes both domesticated maize (ssp. mays) and its closest wild relatives known as the teosintes. While genetic and archaeological studies have provided a well-established history of Z. mays evolution, there is currently minimal description of its current and past distribution. Here, we implemented species distribution modeling using paleoclimatic models of the...

Relative water content may be accurately estimated using the ratio of tissue fresh weight to tissue turgid weight, termed here relative tissue weight. That relative water content and relative tissue weight are linearly related is demonstrated algebraically. The mean value of r(2) for grapevine (Vitis vinifera L. cv. Shiraz) leaf tissue over eight separate sampling occasions was 0.993. Similarly...

A line × tester analysis was conducted in maize involving 12 lines and 3 testers for grain yield and its components to determine the heterosis as well as general combining ability (GCA) and specific combining ability (SCA) effects. Highly significant genotypic differences were observed indicated wide range of variability present among the genotypes. GCA and SCA variance for yield per plant numb...

Acetolactate synthase (EC 4.1.3.18) activity was examined in maize (Zea mays L.) endosperm and embryos as a function of kernel development. When assayed using unpurified homogenates, embryo acetolactate synthase activity appeared less sensitive to inhibition by leucine + valine and by the imidazolinone herbicide imazapyr than endosperm acetolactate synthase activity. Evidence is presented to sh...

Agrobacterium tumefaciens mediated transformation may offer a better alternative than the biolistic gun for genetic transformation of maize plants. This gene delivery system results in a greater proportion of stable, low-copy number transgenic events than does the biolistic gun, and is highly efficient. In the present work, we studied maize transformation using A. tumefaciens by identifying som...

The maize (Zea mays subsp. mays L.) shoot apical meristem (SAM) is a self-replenishing pool of stem cells that produces all above-ground plant tissues. Improvements in image acquisition and processing techniques have allowed high-throughput, quantitative genetic analyses of SAM morphology. As with other large-scale phenotyping efforts, meaningful descriptions of genetic architecture depend on t...

People are worried about effect of household cleaning products in the environment. One of the sources of detergent is sewage that is being used for irrigation of the crops. A laboratory experiment and a pot experiment were conducted in 2012 to determine the effect of irrigation with different doses of detergent on plant growth and seed germination traits of maize (Zea mays). The experiments inc...

Association mapping through linkage disequilibrium (LD) analysis is a powerful tool for the dissection of complex agronomic traits and for the identifi cation of alleles that can contribute to the enhancement of a target trait. With the developments of high throughput genotyping techniques and advanced statistical approaches as well as the assembling and characterization of multiple association...