How to Monitor Growth and Identify Developmental Stages of Maize (Zea mays)
- Miriam Nancy Salazar-Vidal1,
- Melissa A. Draves1,
- Sarah L. Fitzsimmons2,
- Zachary B. Traylor2,
- William F. Tracy3 and
- Sherry Flint-Garcia4,5
- 1Division of Plant Science and Technology, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65211, USA
- 2Division of Biological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65211, USA
- 3Department of Agronomy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA
- 4Plant Genetics Research Unit, U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service, Columbia, Missouri 65211, USA
- ↵5Correspondence: sherry.flint-garcia{at}usda.gov
Abstract
Properly characterizing the stages of corn growth is critical to conducting successful experiments in maize genetics and breeding. Specifically, accurately identifying stages of growth is required to perform developmentally dependent sampling or data collection, to predict time to flowering and seed maturation, and to allow for comparisons between different lines and populations based on developmental time. In this protocol, we summarize previous knowledge about maize development and describe how to monitor these stages in the reference inbred line B73, a yellow dent corn.
Footnotes
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From the Maize collection, edited by Candice N. Hirsch and Marna D. Yandeau-Nelson. The entire Maize collection is available online at Cold Spring Harbor Protocols and can be accessed at https://cshprotocols.cshlp.org/.
