2013 GEM SCA Report
Use of GEM Germplasm for Evaluation and Development of Drought Tolerance, Corn Ear
Worm Resistance, and Low Aflatoxin
Wenwei Xu, Agricultural Research and Extension Center, Texas A&M University, 1102 East
FM 1294, Lubbock, TX 79403. Tel.: 806-746-4015, E-mail: we-xu@tamu.edu
This final report highlights the major activities and accomplishement related to this GEM
SCA project. The objectives of this project were: (1) Select, advance, and release stress-tolerant
inbred lines from GEM germplasm; (2) Evaluate GEM breeding crosses for drought and heat
tolerance, corn ear worm resistance, and agronomic performance in Texas.
We evaluated about 100 testcrosses between GEM lines (developed in Lubbock) with
public and licensed proprietary lines for grain yield, corn earworm (CEW) resistance, and
drought tolerance in the Texas High Plains (Lubbock, Halfway, and Dumas) under well-watered
and drought conditions and in the south-central Texas (College Station, Corpus Christi, Ganado,
Uvalde, and Wharton). Inbred lines have been developed ANTIGO01:N16, AR03056:N0902,
BR5205:N04, CH05012:N12, CUBA117:S15, CUBA164:S20, DK888:N11, DK888:Na08f,
DKXL380:S08a, FS8A(T):N11a, and GUAT209:N19 SCROGP3:N1411a., SCROGP3:N2017,
and SCROP1:N1318. Four inbred lines have been licensed to a seed company for
commercialization. One of our inbred lines is used as a parent line for a commercial hybrid
which is currently widely grown in the southern US. The line has generated a royalty. In
addition, we have developed the brown midrib (BMR) lines with the background of
GUAT209:N19 (bm1) and DK888:N11 (bm3). Five inbred lines (Tx206, Tx207, Tx208, Tx209,
and Tx210) have the with the bm1-controlled BMR trait and were officially released in
November, 2012 by the Texas A&M University (Xu et al., 2013). These five lines were
developed from the three-way cross GUAT209:N19 x C2B105BM. GUAT209:N19 was
obtained from the GEM project. The testcrosses of these BMR lines with a non-BMR tester
have excellent grain and silage yield. Tx208 and Tx209 are also resistant to gray leaf spot
disease. Four BMR inbred lines (bm3) with the background of DK888:N11 have been licensed
to a seed company. In 2013, we evaluated 40 GEM breeding crosses in Lubbock and Halfway
for drought and heat tolerance, corn earworm resistance, and grain yield, held a field day at Etter
on August 22, and hosted a number of corn breeders from several seed companies to tour our
corn breeding nursery and test plots including GEM materials.
Evaluation of 40 GEM Breeding Crosses: The 40 GEM breeding crosses and five
commercial hybrids were grown in the field under well-watered conditions at Halfway and
drought stressed conditions in Lubbock, Texas in 2013 (Table 1). Tests at each location used a
randomized complete block design with two replications and two-row plots. Plants in the
drought tolerance test in Lubbock experienced severe hail storm damage at V-9 stage. From
these field trials, we identified breeding crosses for drought and heat tolerance, CEW resistance,
and Fusarium ear rots. BR105:S1626f99aj, BR106:N99z46, BR106:N99amT4799ba, and
TZAR104:N99bb99bq had excellent grain yield under well-watered and drought conditions,
Page 1 of 3
resistant to CEW, and tolerant to heat stress. They are my choices for further breeding. We
identified six breeding crosses had low corn earworm damages:
BR105:S1626f99aj,
BR106:N99amT4799ba, ((KO679Y/CUBA117:S15-101-001-B-B-B-B-B-B-B)/GEMS-0016)-B,
(GEMS-0002/CUBA117:S15-101-001-B-B-B-B-B-B-B)-B, and BR106:N99z46. Four breeding
crosses were resistant to Fusarium ear rots: BR105:S1626f99aj, BR106:N99amT4799ba,
(GEMS-0002/CUBA117:S15-101-001-B-B-B-B-B-B-B)-B, and (GEMS-0126/GEMS-0002)-B.
Twelve breeding crosses were sensitive to high temperature, including ATL100:N99bb99bp,
BR106:S4299ah, BR106:N4299, CL-G1703:S17c43, CML373:S99y99bd, CML373:S99az99bs,
(GEMS-0147/GEMS-0180)-B, (GEMS-0219/GEMN-0152)-B, (GEMS-0030/CUBA117:S15101-001-B-B-B-B-B-B-B)-B, (H8431/((GEMS-0115/Mp717)/TZAR101))-SIB, (((26e/GEMN097)-SIB-SIB)/GEMN-0046)-SIB, and ((KO679Y/CUBA117:S15-101-001-B-B-B-B-B-BB)/GEMS-0016)-B (Table 1).
Publications covering GME germplasm:
 Wenwei Xu, Thomas Marek, and Mike Blanco. 2013. Registration of Maize Germplasm
Tx206, Tx207, Tx208, Tx209, and Tx210. (submitted to Journal of Plant Registration).
 Wenwei Xu, Thomas Marek, Traci Bland, Andy Cranmer, and Dennis Pietsch. 2013. 2013
State Silage Corn Performance Test on the Texas High Plains. Texas A&M AgriLife
Research and Extension-Lubbock Center Technical Report No.14-4. Pages 1-12.
Invited presentations covering GEM Germplasm:
 Wenwei Xu, S. Murray, G. Odvody, D. Lee, H. Abbas, M. Brewer, T. Isakeit, M.
Krakowsky, X. Ni, B. Scully, W.P. Williams. Breeding and testing for aflatoxin resistance.
2012 AMCOE Project Results. FEB 26, 2013, Gaylord Palm Resort, Kissimmee, FL.
 Wenwei Xu. Breeding drought tolerant corn. Plant Breeder Circle at Department of Soil
and Crop Science, Texas A&M University, January 25, 2013. College Station, TX.
 Wenwei Xu. Frontiers in US corn breeding and breeding for drought corn. Gansu
Agricultural University. October 25, 2013. Lanzhou, China
 Wenwei Xu. Frontiers in US corn breeding. Nanjing Agricultural University. October 28,
2013. Nanjing, China.
 Wenwei Xu. New Maize Breeding Technologies and Progress in Improving Drought
Tolerance and Aflatoxin Resistance with Native Genes from Exotic Germplasm. Asian
Seed Congress 2013. Kobe, Japan, November 21, 2013.
Page 2 of 3
Table 1. Days to pollen shed (DTP), plant (PHT, cm) and ear height (EHT, cm), test weight, yield (bu/a), corn earworm
feeding damages (CEW, cm), ear length (EL, cm), and percentage of molded kernels (Mold, %) of 40 GEM breeding crosses
and five commercial hybrids in Halfway and Lubbock, Texas in 2013 .
Halfway – Well watered
ENO
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
Lubbock – Drought stressed
Pedigree
CL-G1703:S17c43
BR105:S1626f99aj
(GEMS-0175/GEMS-0115)-B
(GEMS-0147/GEMS-0180)-B
PHJ40/((GEMS-0115/Mp717)/TZAR101)
(GEMN-0178/GEMN-0140)-B
(GEMN-0186/UR13085:N0215-014-001-B
wx)-B
(GEMN-0186/SCRO1:N1310-509-001-B
wx)-B
BR106:N99amT4799ba
CML373:S99y99bd
BR105:N99ae41
(GEMS-0016/NEI9004:S2809-B-061-B-B)B
((KO679Y/CUBA117:S15-101-001-B-B-BB-B-B-B)/GEMS-0016)-B
((PHK76/KO679Y)/GEMN-0205)-B
(GEMN-0205/GEMN-0152)-B
(GEMS-0219/GEMN-0152)-B
(LH61/CML373)/GEMN-0205
(GEMN-0196/GEMN0205)/ANTIG03:N1242-B-007-B
(DJ7/CML373)/GEMS-0162
((26e/GEMN-0097)-SIB-SIB)/46
(GEMS-0002/CUBA117:S15-101-001-BB-B-B-B-B-B)-B
(GEMS-0030/CUBA117:S15-101-001-BB-B-B-B-B-B)-B
(GEMS-0126/GEMS-0002)-B
(((26e/GEMN-097)-SIB-SIB)/GEMN0046)-SIB
(GEMN-0152/ANTIG03:N1242-B-007-B)SIB
(H8431/((GEMS0115/Mp717)/TZAR101))-SIB
NC354:S99y42
ATL100:N99ba99z
ATL100:N99bb99bp
ATL100:N99bb99br
BR106:S4299ah
CML373:S99az99bs
SX1078:N99bb99br
SX1078:N99bb99z
SX2788:N99ba99br
TZAR104:N99bb99bq
TZAR104:S99bd99ah
BR106:N99z46
SX1078:N99bb42
BR106:N4299z
BH9029VTTP (CK1)
P1151AM1 (CK2)
P1395AM (CK3)
P1768AMX (CK4)
DKC67-88 (CK5)
DTP
74.0
76.5
79.0
78.0
71.0
72.0
PHT
227.0
278.5
230.5
228.0
237.0
228.5
EHT
98.5
118.0
101.0
106.0
99.5
103.0
TestW
62.0
63.6
61.8
60.9
64.5
59.4
Yield
175.9
183.7
139.1
115.0
113.6
115.7
Yield
22.8
53.6
23.0
27.3
40.2
23.6
CEW
6.8
4.0
8.1
8.5
5.4
7.6
EL
14.8
16.4
16.1
13.9
15.3
14.7
Mold
23.0
7.5
19.0
38.0
23.0
30.0
75.0
308.0
86.0
60.3
98.0
26.7
6.6
15.2
28.0
76.0
72.5
71.5
76.5
236.0
234.5
232.5
275.5
88.0
103.0
89.0
127.0
60.2
62.2
62.3
60.9
105.4
175.2
160.8
139.9
20.1
51.5
31.8
48.5
6.3
4.7
6.5
5.5
14.0
22.7
15.1
15.7
20.0
7.5
23.0
13.0
76.0
222.0
87.0
62.5
118.4
20.2
6.3
13.2
20.0
77.0
74.5
73.5
75.5
72.5
227.0
219.5
237.0
248.5
230.0
100.0
90.5
105.0
112.0
101.0
63.2
61.7
60.1
62.8
60.9
123.4
120.2
120.4
130.3
167.7
27.5
43.5
35.2
32.8
46.5
4.7
6.2
5.5
6.2
5.3
14.4
16.9
15.3
14.4
16.6
10.0
25.0
23.0
20.0
13.0
72.5
75.5
74.0
247.5
238.0
240.0
116.0
95.0
92.0
61.4
62.0
59.9
167.8
146.8
152.0
80.7
23.9
63.2
7.3
6.5
4.5
18.0
13.7
17.1
20.0
20.0
10.0
73.0
236.5
105.0
64.1
125.1
37.7
4.9
14.8
6.0
79.0
72.5
249.0
242.0
117.0
90.0
59.8
64.1
101.3
97.5
18.2
25.3
5.0
5.3
14.8
15.1
25.0
3.5
74.5
229.0
93.0
62.1
132.2
32.2
6.0
14.3
9.5
75.5
251.0
112.0
58.3
122.3
52.6
6.3
15.3
10.0
74.0
72.5
75.0
74.5
77.0
79.0
77.0
75.5
71.5
74.0
72.5
76.5
75.0
71.0
76.0
74.0
73.0
72.5
72.5
73.5
237.5
207.0
223.0
222.0
237.5
220.5
239.5
236.0
226.0
255.0
249.5
233.5
241.5
207.5
225.5
238.5
222.5
241.5
238.0
258.0
97.0
81.5
95.0
94.0
101.0
100.0
109.0
90.0
89.0
111.0
118.0
105.0
94.5
81.5
97.5
108.0
87.0
96.5
90.5
106.0
62.7
62.4
61.0
59.0
62.2
59.6
59.5
62.4
62.0
62.4
61.8
61.3
60.7
61.0
61.0
62.5
62.2
63.0
62.6
63.7
120.2
107.8
157.0
97.4
148.2
92.0
138.1
150.1
149.0
147.6
187.5
134.1
176.9
128.2
111.9
210.1
183.5
193.3
185.5
225.2
41.2
25.8
27.4
35.9
65.6
30.4
40.5
63.8
64.2
40.0
56.0
65.9
67.9
42.4
29.6
75.1
60.5
59.2
92.6
92.3
6.3
5.9
6.6
6.4
6.1
5.7
5.0
5.8
7.1
4.7
6.1
5.4
4.5
7.5
6.3
4.6
6.9
6.9
5.3
4.0
15.0
13.4
16.5
14.2
16.7
12.5
14.2
16.9
17.7
14.8
17.9
16.0
17.0
15.3
16.8
18.5
16.9
15.8
16.2
16.9
23.0
33.0
15.0
15.0
14.0
38.0
15.0
15.0
28.0
13.0
13.0
13.0
20.0
10.0
20.0
3.0
13.0
23.0
18.0
10.0
Test mean
CK mean
CV%
LSD 0.05
74.5
73.1
2.2
3.2
237.6
239.7
5.5
26.3
99.7
97.6
13.6
ns
61.6
62.8
1.2
1.5
142.0
199.5
18.8
37.9
44.1
76.0
25.6
22.8
5.9
5.5
18.3
2.2
15.7
16.9
8.7
2.7
17.8
13.4
50.7
17.9
Page 3 of 3
Note
Heat sensitive
Long ear
Heat sensitive
Heat sensitive
Nice plants
Very heat sensitive
Heat sensitive
Nice plants, Long ear'
Very heat sensitive
Heat sensitive
Very heat sensitive
Heat sensitive
Heat sensitive
Heat sensitive
Nice plants
Very nice plants
Very heat sensitive