Sorghum solution
By introducing sorghum, Maria Salas-Fernandez, assistant professor in the Department of Agronomy, is bringing new depth to Iowa State’s burgeoning breeding program in forages and biofuel feedstocks.
Salas-Fernandez will blend traditional breeding strategies with her molecular biology and genomics expertise.
“Sorghum has so many different types that can contribute to different production systems,” says Salas-Fernandez, including a grain composition similar to corn, a sugar-rich stalk in sweet sorghums and the lignocellulosic biomass component.
The Buenos Aires native who recently completed her doctoral degree at Cornell University in New York is gathering germplasm from publically available sources, collaborators and breeders both nationally and internationally for planting come spring. Types include traditional grain sorghum, photoperiod sensitive types (that do not flower in temperate climates), sudangrasses and sweet sorghums.
“Breeding is a game of numbers—you need genetic variation to make any progress at all,” says Salas-Fernandez.
The program she is establishing will primarily involve sorghum but will include other crops. Salas-Fernandez will study plant height, flowering time, and cellulose/hemicelluloses/lignin composition, as it relates to biomass. She will make use of sorghum’s completed genome sequence, genetic maps, established molecular markers, expressed sequence tags (ESTs).
“I don’t think one crop will cover all the needs for biofuel production,” says Salas-Fernandez, “that would be naive.”
Among the advantages of sorghum is the fact that it is adapted to marginal lands so its cultivation will not displace food crops. It could also be included in a rotation, as compared to corn it uses roughly 30 percent less water, 20-25 percent less nitrogen and planting costs are significantly lower.
