2022 Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) Symposium
Location
ScholarSpace, Rod Library, University of Northern Iowa
Presentation Type
Poster Presentation (UNI Access Only)
Document Type
poster
Keywords
Teff--Iowa--Growth; Teff--Geographical distribution;
Abstract
Tef (Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter) is a grain crop native to Ethiopia that is widely used for food and animal feed. The straw is used to make mud bricks. Tef is also gaining popularity in the western hemisphere because the grain is gluten free and the grain is nutritious. The crop has seen very little genetic improvement due to lack of research, most notably to reduce its susceptibility to lodging, which greatly reduces yield. Tef grows in multiple US states primarily as hay for animal feed. Dr. Abebe has been working to introduce strains that adapt to Iowa conditions with better traits that are beneficial to farming. We screened 102 strains in the summer of 2022. Seeds were planted in starter trays and two-weeks later five seedlings per strain were transplanted to the field at a spacing of 15 cm2. We recorded various agronomic measurements throughout the growing season. In some tef strains, the flower burned when the temperature was above 85°F at anthesis. Most plants matured between 2 and 3 months. However, we also observed that most plants lost seeds due to shattering. These variations suggest the need to continue evaluating tef to select strains that are suitable to Iowa conditions. We genotyped strains using selected STR (short tandem repeat) markers. We preliminarily found the size of the repeats to be between around 140 to 250 base pairs at the selected loci for 24 of the strains.
Start Date
29-7-2022 11:00 AM
End Date
29-7-2022 1:30 PM
Event Host
Summer Undergraduate Research Program, University of Northern Iowa
Faculty Advisor
Tilahun Abebe
Department
Department of Biology
Copyright
©2022 Kyle Trunnell and Dr. Tilahun Abebe
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Trunnell, Kyle and Abebe, Tilahun Ph.D., "Evaluation of the Performance of Tef Crop in Iowa" (2022). Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) Symposium. 5.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/surp/2022/all/5
Evaluation of the Performance of Tef Crop in Iowa
ScholarSpace, Rod Library, University of Northern Iowa
Tef (Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter) is a grain crop native to Ethiopia that is widely used for food and animal feed. The straw is used to make mud bricks. Tef is also gaining popularity in the western hemisphere because the grain is gluten free and the grain is nutritious. The crop has seen very little genetic improvement due to lack of research, most notably to reduce its susceptibility to lodging, which greatly reduces yield. Tef grows in multiple US states primarily as hay for animal feed. Dr. Abebe has been working to introduce strains that adapt to Iowa conditions with better traits that are beneficial to farming. We screened 102 strains in the summer of 2022. Seeds were planted in starter trays and two-weeks later five seedlings per strain were transplanted to the field at a spacing of 15 cm2. We recorded various agronomic measurements throughout the growing season. In some tef strains, the flower burned when the temperature was above 85°F at anthesis. Most plants matured between 2 and 3 months. However, we also observed that most plants lost seeds due to shattering. These variations suggest the need to continue evaluating tef to select strains that are suitable to Iowa conditions. We genotyped strains using selected STR (short tandem repeat) markers. We preliminarily found the size of the repeats to be between around 140 to 250 base pairs at the selected loci for 24 of the strains.
