Germplasm Enhancement of Maize (GEM)
In August, 2007, Dr. Matt Krakowsky replaced Dr. Goodman as the Raleigh Germplasm Enhancement of Maize Project (GEM) Coordinator. The Raleigh GEM project handles the 50% tropical component of GEM line development. On an annual basis approximately one half of the NC State Maize Breeding Program’s resources are devoted to GEM, either in nursery, gray leaf spot, or yield trial evaluation.
The GEM project is a private/public collaborative breeding project sponsored by the USDA (Salhuana, 1994). The program was proposed as a follow-up to the Latin American Maize Project (LAMP) which evaluated over 12,000 accessions from 12 countries throughout North, Central, and South America (Pollak, 2003; Salhuana et al., 1991). Through GEM, exotic lines and accessions are crossed with elite proprietary U.S. inbreds for line-development purposes. GEM involves the cooperation of approximately 20 private companies and so far 36 GEM-derived lines have been released (Balint-Kurti et al., 2006; Blanco et al., 2005; Carson et al., 2006).
References
Balint-Kurti, P.J., M. Blanco, M. Millard, S. Duvick, J.B. Holland, M.J. Clements, R.N. Holley, M.L. Carson, and M.M. Goodman. 2006. Registration of 20 GEM maize breeding germplasm lines adapted to the southern USA. Crop Science 46:996-998. Blanco, M., C.A. Gardner, W. Salhuana, and N. Shen. 2005. Germplasm enhancement of maize project (Gem). Annual Illinois Corn Breeding School Proc 41:22-41. Carson, M.L., P.J. Balint-Kurti, M. Blanco, M. Millard, S. Duvick, R.N. Holley, J. Hudyncia, and M.M. Goodman. 2006. Registration of 9 high-yielding tropical by temperate maize germplasm lines adapted for the southern US. Crop Science 46:1825-1826 Pollak, L.M. 2003. The history and success of the public-private project on germplasm enhancement of maize (GEM), Advances in Agronomy 78:45-87 Salhuana, W. 1994. Public/private collaboration proposed to strengthen quality and production of U.S. corn through maize germplasm enhancement. Diversity 9-10:77-79. Salhuana, W., Q. Jones, and R. Sevilla. 1991. The Latin American Maize Project: model for rescue and use of irreplaceable germplasm. Diversity 7:40-42.