Flood-tolerant corn breeding lines discovered by ARS scientist Martin M. Sachs in Urbana, Illinois offer farmers the prospect of salvaging crops despite flooding.

Sachs, based at the University of Illinois, has identified flood-tolerant South American plants that live up to three times longer under water than most North American corn varieties. He found the flood-resistant corn while screening 400 genetic land races from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico City. He crossed the water-tolerant lines from South America with normal inbred North American lines. The results: half of the resulting corn plants survived flooding, after the North American parents had died.

Sachs would like to determine the genetic, physiological, biochemical and molecular differences these flood tolerant inbreds have and ultimately isolate the gene or genes involved. So far, he's identified 10 different breeding lines, each of which shows a simple dominant trait for increased flood tolerance.

For now, he uses traditional breeding techniques to cross the desired trait into American corn lines. But he envisions that genetic engineering will allow him to fortify corn with even more flood tolerance from rice.

Sachs is director of ARS' Maize Genetics Cooperation Stock Center, part of the National Plant Germplasm System supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Scientific contact: Martin Sachs, ARS University of Illinois, Urbana, Ill., phone (217) 244-0864, fax (217) 333-6064, msachs@uiuc.edu.