While at the 2011 Maize Genetics Conference, the Biofortified Executive Editorial Team (Hey that spells BEET), aka Anastasia and I, talked about many of the awesome things that have made it onto the blog, and things that have not yet done so. One of the craziest things that I learned from a fellow graduate student while harvesting ears of corn in the field last fall were the Oat-Maize Addition Lines. People often frame their
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by Karl Haro von Mogel on 18 March 2011 A couple years ago, Anastasia wrote about the NCCC-167 North Central Region Corn Breeding Research meeting. (NCCC stands for North Central Communications Committee.) This time around, it was my turn to attend, and it went pretty well if you ask me. After a short drive from Madison to St. Charles, IL, the one-day conference started just after lunch.
Some of the talks on the first afternoon were on the effect of pieces of the wild teosinte genome in maize varieties, aka introgression lines, and selecting for dark orange color in the kernels, for example. Reid, a fellow UW-Madison grad student, gave a great presentation on the performance of some new sweet corn lines compared to popular varieties.
On the second day, the first order of business was a round-table discussion from 8-11:30, where breeders and grad students could get up in the middle of the group and draw their breeding strategies on an easel.
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by Anastasia on 10 November 2010  The maize genetics community needs your help! POPcorn a special resource being developed with the goal of putting all maize-related information in one easy-to-use place. To help make POPcorn the best possible resource, they need feedback on ease of use.
Not a maize geneticist or breeder? The resource might still be of use to you if you study another crop or if you are just interested in learning more about a particular plant gene and what it does.
Any feedback that you can provide would be a big help to the POPcorn team. POPcorn is funded by NSF.
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by Karl Haro von Mogel on 16 March 2009 Friday was the first full day of the 51st Maize Genetics Conference, and it was filled with all kinds of genetic fun. When I saw the program, I knew I would be up for the first talks of the morning at 8 am, because they were about transposons. The rest of the day was filled with poster presentations, talks about online genetic resources, and a discussion of gene annotation. Anastasia was there with me, and she’ll have all sorts of good stuff to talk about as we give the 51st MGC the exposure it deserves!
Transposons are really neat. Also known as Mobile Genetic Elements, Transposable Elements, or just “jumping genes,” they are sequences of DNA that are capable of popping out of a chromosome and inserting themselves into another. The most well known kind of transposon contains a gene that encodes for an enzyme called Transposase, which physically chops the transposon out of the DNA strand it is in, and puts it in another. The result is a gene that does not remain in a fixed location, and ‘jumps’ around the genome from Chromosome to chromosome, turning other genes on and off if it inserts in them or near them. Transposons were first described in Maize, by the famous Cornell biologist Barbara McClintock, and are thought of as some of the source of genetic variations that fuel evolution. Sometimes they can incorporate bits of other genes and move them around, causing all sorts of genetic modifications.
The morning talks were full of transpositional goodness.
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Hello one and all, your favorite genetically engineered corn is here to spread a little cheer! At long last, I am pleased to announce the winners of our recent carving and costume contest.
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