Location: Food and Feed Safety Research
Project Number: 6054-42000-027-011-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Aug 19, 2024
End Date: Aug 18, 2025
Objective:
1. To determine the relationship among corn-environment interactions, mycotoxin contamination levels, kernel quality traits, plant phenology, plant hyperspectral imaging and yield performance of corn hybrids in specific growing regions of Texas.
2. To understand the link among weather, kernel quality traits and corn phenology traits that are desirable for corn production then evaluating the correlation among those traits and aflatoxin contamination in different geographical corn-growing zones of Texas will aid in preventing the presence of aflatoxin.
Approach:
Field trials across Texas will be used to evaluate grain quality traits and mycotoxin content in various commercial hybrids during natural infections in the field. We will establish variety trials in different production regions of Texas to obtain data on: Seed quality traits, corn phenology, hyperspectral images of corn, soil properties, and mycotoxin levels. Supervised and unsupervised modeling will be performed to analyze the data and contamination levels.
Determine hybrid performance and aflatoxin contamination in different ecoregions of Texas by evaluating kernel quality traits, hybrid phenology, yield and mycotoxin contamination in the field. Determine the relationship of kernel quality traits, and mycotoxin contamination by using kernel screening assays. Determine the relationship of weather, hyperspectral images, soil properties, hybrid performance and mycotoxin contamination from objective 1 across different ecoregions in Texas.
