This U.S.-Mexico award will support a collaborative project between Professor Alfredo Huerta of Miami University at Oxford, Ohio and Professor Sergio Castro-Nava of the Universidad Autonoma de Tamaulipas, Mexico. The investigators intend to study physiologically based selection criteria for development of drought resistant varieties or hybrids of grain sorghum. A second objective is to further basic understanding of drought resistance mechanisms in plants. Experiments will be conducted in the field at the agricultural research station in Tamaulipas and in greenhouses at the Department of Botany in Oxford, Ohio. Water availability is the major limiting factor for crop productivity worldwide. In the state of Tamaulipas, Mexico, grain sorghum is a major crop and the state contributes almost half of the total sorghum produced in Mexico. Three quarters of the sorghum produced in Tamaulipas is cultivated as a rainfed crop, thus exposing the crop to a high probability of water stress during some part of its development, with resultant very low yields. Current advances in the development of locally adapted varieties and hybrids of sorghum have not focused on drought tolerance. This collaboration between a plant pathologist (Huerta) and a breeder (Castro) will lead to results on the physiology and metabolism of drought tolerance that should help to focus on new directions and possible new selection criteria for these crops.
