News about the Genomes To Fields (G2F) Phenotyping Initiative

June 21, 2016

Welcome to the Genomes To Field Newsletter

To better communicate with our collaborators and other interested parties, we have developed this newsletter through which we will communicate timely and important topics related to the Genomes To Fields phenotyping initiative.

You can learn more about Genomes To Fields on the website, http://www.genomes2fields.org.

NIFA RFA for Phenotyping Projects

USDA-NIFA recently released their 2016 request for funding proposals. As part of this year's RFA is a new commodity board matching grants program. This year, Iowa, Illinois and Nebraska corn boards have contributed $250,000 in funding which will be matched by NIFA for grants under their Foundational Program in the area of phenomics.

Click HERE for a link to the RFA. The commodity board phenomics grant is listed on page 13.

Members of Genomes To Fields are encouraged to apply for a grant under this program. The deadline for submitting proposals is July 28. If you are considering such a proposal, please contact David Ertl () who is coordinating this with the corn boards.

Federal Funding Being Sought

Members of the Genomes To Fields Executive Committee, along with several university government relations staff and the Iowa and National Corn Growers Associations are working on several approaches to obtaining federal funds to support and grow the Genomes To Fields effort.

This spring report language was submitted to Senators and Congressmen requesting funding for Genomes To Fields. We are pleased to report that the Senate Agricultural Appropriations Committee submitted their budget request recently and it included language for funding for G2F. Here is the language that was included in the Senate Ag budget:

Genomes to Fields. The Committee encourages ARS to expand the Germplasm Enhancement of Maize [GEM] project and has provided $1,250,000 to complement the existing USDA maize germplasm programs and support the emerging large-scale public sector effort to investigate the interaction of maize genome variation and environments, known as the Genomes to Fields project.

Additional approaches are also being pursued at the federal level, including the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research. The Executive Committee has submitted a proposal to FFAR. FFAR has taken an interest in phenotyping and is involving the executive committee in further discussions.

The G2F Executive Committee is made up of Natalia de Leon, Pat Schnable, Nathan Springer, Shawn Kaeppler, Jonathan Lynch, Ed Buckler and David Ertl.

The GxE Testing Program Expands in 2016

The GxE Experiments enters its third year in 2016 with an increased number of states being represented. Hybrid testing is taking place in 19 states and Ontario, with newly added states including Michigan, Arizona, Arkansas, South Carolina, and a new location in Georgia.

Publications are being prepared based on the 2014 and 2015 data collected through this trial.