The Maize Genomes to Fields Initiative: Data Discovery and Reuse

Naser AlKhalifah, Iowa State University of Science and Technology

Breeding decisions to develop improved cultivars for industrial and agricultural uses are greatly facilitated by simultaneously leveraging phenotypic, genotypic, weather, and image data. Development of standardized data collection and analysis practices, by working directly with the data generators in the initial stages of the data collection process, is an important first step to support a multi-institutional, multi-year breeding projects. The Genotype by Environment (GxE) subproject within the maize Genomes to Fields (G2F) is a multi-institutional project spanning 25 North American locations. The GxE group is collectively addressing environmental effects on the performance of a large collection of maize inbreds and hyrbids grown in 25 diverse locations. At each location, data were collected on 14 core phenotypic traits, as well as weather measurments with image data for a subset of locations. To assist in the management of these diverse data types, we are developing a robust, yet flexible, data management and analysis platform that meets their immediate needs but is aslo extendable to the broader plant breeding community. In this presentation, we present progress made over the past couple of years working with partners at the Cyverse, as well as plans for next steps in 2017.

Title: The Maize Genomes to Fields Initiative: Data Discovery and Reuse

Submitter's E-mail Address: nalkhal@iastate.edu