CIMMYT releases its first ever maize genetic resource lines

 

Maize and wheat fields at CIMMYT’s El Batán experimental station. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT)

The nine new maize lines are especially valuable for breeders seeking drought tolerance or tar spot complex disease resistance.

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is pleased to announce the release of a new category of maize inbred lines called CIMMYT Maize Genetic Resource Lines (CMGRL). The CMGRLs are derived from crosses between elite CIMMYT lines and landrace accessions, populations or synthetics from the CIMMYT Germplasm Bank.

Although high standards of yield and agronomic performance are applied in their selection, CMGRLs are not intended to be used directly in commercial hybrids but rather by breeders as sources of novel alleles for traits of economic importance. These lines should also be of interest to maize researchers who are not breeders but are studying the underlying genetic mechanisms of abiotic and biotic traits.

Currently the maize genetic resources breeding team has projects in drought tolerance, heat tolerance, tar spot complex (TSC) disease resistance and in the development of lines and hybrids with blue kernel color. For all of these projects, the best lines identified for a given trait objective will be recombined to produce open-pollinated varieties that will be made available to the public.

The inaugural class of CMGRLs includes five subtropical adapted lines for tolerance to drought during flowering and grain-fill and four tropical adapted lines for TSC resistance. Both phenotypic and genotypic data will be published online for all CMGRL releases. CIMMYT will periodically release CMGRLs as superior lines are identified for economically important abiotic and biotic stresses as well as end-use traits.

Release Summary:

CMGRL Name	Trait Target	Type	Level	Landrace Donor Parent	Landrace Country of Origin	Recurrent Parent	Heterotic Group	Adaptation
CMGRLB001	TSC resistance	BC1	S5	OAXA280	Mexico	CML576	B	Tropical
CMGRLB002	TSC resistance	BC1	S5	OAXA280	Mexico	CML576	B	Tropical
CMGRLB003	TSC resistance	BC1	S5	GUAT153	Guatemala	CML576	B	Tropical
CMGRLB004	TSC resistance	BC1	S5	GUAT153	Guatemala	CML576	B	Tropical
CMGRLB005	Drought tolerance	BC1	S5	ARZM12193	Argentina	CML376	B	Subtropical
CMGRLB006	Drought tolerance	BC1	S5	ARZM12237	Argentina	CML376	B	Subtropical
CMGRLB007	Drought tolerance	BC1	S5	SNLP169	Mexico	CML376	B	Subtropical
CMGRLB008	Drought tolerance	BC1	S5	SNLP17	Mexico	CML376	B	Subtropical
CMGRLB009	Drought tolerance	BC1	S5	SNLP17	Mexico	CML376	B	Subtropical

 Full details including phenotypic and genotypic data on the nine lines are available here. To order a 50-kernel seed sample of the CMGRLs, please contact Terry Molnar.

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Source; CIMMYT