The chief scientist of the project, Professor Wang Guoying from Institute of Crop Sciences (ICS) of CAAS said, “Maize is China’s largest crop, breeding maize varieties of high yield and quality will be an effective way to support the food security in China”. In recent years, the application of modern plant breeding theory and biotechnology contributed tremendously in maize improvement. But most studied on molecular breeding application has been focusing on a small set of traits controlled by a major gene(s), and left out the complex traits, such as maize yield. This implies that there is still no effective molecular breeding strategy of maize, hence call for further research.

The project under Professor Wang will explore the genetic architecture of maize yield and quality-related traits and try to develop innovative breeding strategies based on genome-wide selection.

A total of 30 researchers from CAAS, China Agricultural University, Sichuan Agricultural University, Huazhong Agricultural University, Shanghai University, Henan Agricultural University and Anhui Agricultural University, will team together on this project.