Principles of Plant Genetics and Breeding

orer. A chemical found in corn with the acronym
DIMBOA, is reported to impart resistance to this
pest to plants. Insect pests of economic importance
include the following:
(a) Soil-inhabiting insects. Important soil-inhabiting
insect pests of corn include corn rootworms
(Diabratica longicornis), black cutworms (Agrostis
ypsilon), wireworms such as Melanotus cribulosus,
and the sugarcane beetle (Euetheola rugiceps).
(b) Leaf, stalk, and ear insects. An important pest
of corn is the corn earworm (Heliothis armigera
or H. zea) and the European corn borer
(Pyrausta nubilalis).
(c) Stored corn grain insects. Major storage pests
of corn include the rice or black weevil
Acquaah, G. 2005. Principles of crop production. Theory,
techniques and technology. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle
River, NJ.
Khehra, A.S., B.S. Dhillon, and D.S. Multani. 1997. Corn. In:
Genetics, cytogenetics, and breeding of crop plants. Vol. 2.
Part A
Please answer the following questions true or false:
1 Corn is a dioecious plant.
2 E. M. East founded the Hi-Bred Corn Company of Iowa.
3 Corn belongs to the family Poaceae.
4 B-chromosomes occur in corn.
Part B
Please answer the following questions:
1 What is xenia?
2 Give three of the states in the Corn Belt of the USA.
3 Discuss the types of corn.
4 What does QPM stand for?
Part C
Please write a brief essay on each of the following topics:
BREEDING CORN 497
References and suggested reading
Outcomes assessment
1 Discuss the major objectives in breeding pest resistance in corn.
2 Discuss the major agromorphological traits of importance in corn breeding.
3 Discuss the main methods of breeding corn.
(Sitophilus oryzae), and the Angoumois grain
moth (Sitotroga cerealella).
7 Product quality. One of the major achievements in
cereal grain protein improvement is the breeding of
quality protein maize (QPM), a high protein corn
bred by incorporating the opaque-2 gene. Also, high
oil content is a goal of some breeding programs.
High oil corn is of high industrial value. Selection in
the long-duration Illinois High Oil Strain Experiment
has increased oil content from the initial 4.7% to
over 21% over several decades. Other end-use quality
breeding goals include improvement of milling
quality, and enhancing the sugar content of sweet
corn (by incorporating the shrunken-2 (sh 2 ) gene in
breeding).
Cereal and commercial crops (Bhal, P.N., P.M. Salimath,
and A.K. Mandal, eds). Science Publishers, Inc., Enfield,
NH.
Russell, W.A. 1991. Genetic improvement of maize yields.
Adv. Agron. 46:245–298.