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Ionomics in Maize – A Practice-Based Phenotyping Platform for Breeding

A novel high throughput phenotyping platform called ionomics was defined as the quantitative and simultaneous measurement of the elemental composition and the ionome is all mineral nutrient and trace elements found in an organism. Ionomics is well developed in Arabidopsis, while similar studies in major crops are still limited. There are four questions hereby critical for plant breeding: What are the elements of interest, what is the accuracy of measurements of them and their variance in genetic material and in which organs (tissues) they should be measured. At the Agricultural institute Osijek, ionomic studies in maize genetic material were being made for more than a decade including hundreds of genotypes analyzed for elemental concentrations in both ear leaf and grain. Elemental analyses were being done by Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP-OES) technique in a laboratory in Hungary. At the beginning, total of 22 elements were measured, but ten to twelve of them were excluded either due to values obtained that were below detection limits or due to low repeatability. The leaf ionome was studied to detect a plant’ s physiological status, whereas the grain ionomics served as a basis for biofortification program - development of mineral-dense genotypes. Two temperate maize elite dent inbred lines having contrasting concentrations of some elements were crossed in order to develop a mapping population. Concentrations of several elements varied substantially in both leaf and grain. The same population was genotyped using SSR and SNP markers and QTL analysis was made for copper, manganese, iron and zinc.

ionomics; maize; grain; leaf; QTL

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