Theses and Dissertations

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Baldwin, Brian

Committee Member

Reynolds, Daniel

Committee Member

Munshaw, Gregg

Date of Degree

12-15-2007

Document Type

Graduate Thesis - Open Access

Major

Agronomy

Degree Name

Master of Science

College

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Department

Department of Plant and Soil Sciences

Abstract

Lowland switchgrass (Panicum virgatum), big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii), indiangrass (Sorghastrum nutans), upland switchgrass (Panicum virgatum), little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium), beaked panicum (Panicum capillare), and purpletop (Tridens flavus) all show strong signs of seed dormancy which contributes to extremely poor field establishment. The objective of this work was to reduce seed dormancy by selecting individuals that exhibited reduced pre-stratification dormancy in laboratory tests. The classical breeding method of phenotypic recurrent selection was used to enhance germination. Of the three tall-stature species, lowland switchgrass made the greatest improvement in pre-stratification germination, followed by indiangrass and big bluestem. The four short stature species have shown various results after one cycle of selection at Starkville. A field emergence trial was also conducted to evaluate three cycles of breeding seed with five commercially available cultivars in which Cycle 3 seed produced more plants per hectare than any of the other cultivars or germplasm.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/17094

Comments

plant breeding||native grasses||biofuels||switchgrass

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