Monday, November 5, 2007 - 1:30 PM
56-1

On the Quantitative Genetics and Tradeoffs in Improving Sorghum as a Biofuel Feedstock.

Seth Murray1, William Rooney2, Arun Sharma3, Sharon Mitchell4, Patricia Klein3, John Mullet3, and Stephen Kresovich5. (1) Institute for Genomic Diversity, Plant Breeding and Genetics Dept., Cornell University, 157 Biotechnology Bldg., Ithaca, NY 14853, (2) Dept. of Crop & Soil Sciences, Texas A&M Univ., College Station, TX 77843-2474, (3) Institute for Plant Genomics and Biotechnology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, (4) Institute for Genomic Diversity, Cornell University, Cornell University, 151 Biotechnology Bldg., Ithaca, NY 14853, (5) Inst. for Genomic Diversity, Cornell University, 158 Biotech Bldg. Cornell Univ, Ithaca, NY 14853-2703

Sorghum has been improved independently for grain, stem sugar, and forage producing cultivars and has large amounts of phenotypic variation with regards to these traits. In this experiment we investigated the production and profile of all above ground tissues that would be useful for biofuel production in a QTL mapping population derived from a cross between ‘Rio', a sweet stem, high biomass sorghum, and ‘BTx623', an inbred grain sorghum. Products assayed were both non-structural: stem sugar, grain starch, oil and protein; and structural: stem and leaf cellulose, hemi-cellulose, lignin, and protein. Few generalized tradeoffs between products were found, and QTL locations imply linkage rather then pleiotropy, encouraging multiple trait improvement. These results suggest that sorghum stover could be improved for bio-products without adversely affecting the grain or developed as a dedicated enriched biomass feedstock to maximize energy production.