Morris Lab — Genomics for Crop Adaptation

Welcome to the lab website of Geoff Morris

Associate Professor in Agronomy

News

• Marcus' paper dissecting the genetics of inflorescence morphology in global sorghum published in G3
• Our collaboration with Lasky lab on genomics of the Striga-sorghum arms-race published in PNAS
• Sandeep's paper dissecting chilling tolerance, laying the foundation for drought escape via early planting, published in G3
• Jianan's paper on seed mass adaptation to global precipitation gradients published in Heredity

Our research

• We're focused on adaptation genomics in sorghum – a global food, feed, and biomass crop – and its cultivated and wild relatives (panicoid grasses).
• Sorghum is a critical crop of drylands worldwide, from commercial farms in the U.S. Great Plains to smallholder plots in Sub-Saharan Africa. With climate change bringing higher temperatures and more erratic rainfall to much of the world, the importance of climate-resilient crops to food security and rural economies will only increase.

Research mission

• To uncover the genomic basis of environmental adaptation
• To accelerate crop improvement for adaptive traits using genomics

Team and community

• See People in the lab
• Our colleagues and collaborators at KSU include: Sorghum breeders, physiologists, and pathologists in the Center for Sorghum Improvement; Biologists at the Ecological Genomics Institute; Wheat Genetics team.
• Plant Breeding & Genetics Journal Club
• Goal-directed Hypothesis-driven (GoHy) scientific method: www.GoHy.org

Our projects

Current projects:

• G2P Bridge for Water Efficient Crops
  • Supported by: Foundation for Food Agriculture Research, Corteva Agriscience, KGSC, KDA
  • Co-PIs and partners: Ignacio Ciampitti, Jeff Dahlberg, Sarah Sexton-Bowser, Chad Hayes, Laura Mayor, Charlie Messina
• TERRA partnership - Sorghum Genomics Toolkit
  • Supported by: Gates Foundation
  • PI: T. Mockler; co-PIs - France: Vincent Vadez, Delphine Luquet, Alain Audebert, Jean Francois Rami, Senegal: Ndiaga Cisse, Ethiopia: Taye Tadesse, US: Jeremy Schmutz
• Implementing genomic selection for a small developing country breeding program (Haiti)
  • Supported by: USAID Haiti, SMIL
  • Co-PIs: Ed Buckler & Gael Pressoir
• TERRA Phenotyping Reference Platform
  • Supported by: Department of Energy ARPA-E TERRA
  • PI: T. Mockler (Danforth); 15 co-PIs, including: J. Schmutz (JGI/HA), J. White (USDA-ARS), P. Andre-Sanchez (U Arizona)
• Improving sorghum adaptation in West Africa with genomics-enabled breeding
  • Supported by: USAID Feed the Future, Sorghum Millet Innovation Lab
  • Co-PIs: Ndiaga Cisse (CERAAS-Senegal); Aissata Mamadou (INRAN-Niger); Daniel Fonceka, JF Rami (CIRAD-France); Falalou Hamidou (ICRISAT-Niger)
• Improved Genomic Mapping and Marker-Assisted Selection for Cold Tolerance in Grain Sorghum
  • Supported by: Kansas Grain Sorghum Commission

Past projects:

• Discovery of new genes for enhancing grain and forage quality traits through association mapping in pearl millet
  • Supported by: USDA-FAS Borlaug Fellowship
  • With: Ram Perumal (KSU), Bass Mbacke (ENSA-Senegal)
  • Pearl millet genomics paper
• Using genetic variation in root traits to maximize soil carbon sequestration and biomass yields
  • Supported by: USDA-AFRI Sustainable Bioenergy
  • PI: M-A De Graaff (PI, Boise St.); Co-PIs: J Jastrow (Argonne); J. Six (ETH)
  • Biomass production paper, Root structure and carbon paper

Get resources

• Get sorghum GBS SNPs for Sorghum Association Panel, Mini-Core Collection, and World Reference Set (from Morris et al. 2013 PNAS)
• Sorghum, pearl millet, and switchgrass genotyping data at Dryad
• Learn how to do more rewarding and impactful research using a goal-directed hypothesis-driven approach (GoHy). See www.GoHy.org