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Researchers from the U.S.D.A - Agricultural Research Service's Robert Holley Center at Cornell have developed a strain of maize with a high iron bioavailability, meaning more of the iron that is present naturally in these maize lines can be absorbed.
 May 30, 2012 - For the first time, the genome of the tomato, Solanum lycopersicum, has been decoded. James Giovannoni, a USDA scientist at the Holley Center, located on the campus of Cornell University, lead the U.S. tomato sequencing team.
 Vegetable mutants have been used to discover novel genes for improving crops with enhanced nutritional quality and health-promoting properties
 lab research uses functional genomic approaches to dissect complex traits in maize.
 USDA-ARS molecular biologist Jim Giovannoni (right) and Boyce Thompson Institute computational biologist Zhangjun Fei (left) led an international research team to develop a tomato pan-genome that revealed nearly 5000 genes or gene variants absent from the original reference genome sequence.
 Wild tomatoes are indigenous to the Andes mountains and nearby regions of S. America and were likely domesticated in the area that is now Mexico.European explorers first brought tomatoes to Europe in the 1500's where they served as the foundation for much world-wide tomato breeding through the mid 1900's.Modern breeding continues to use these genetic foundations.


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People Birkett, Clayton Buckler, Edward
                                            *- Ed* Craft, Eric Edmister, Sara Fish, Tara Gates, Philip
                                            *- Brad* Giovannoni, James Gladman, Nicholas Glahn, Raymond Jannink, Jean-Luc Lepak, Nicholas Li, Li Liu, Jiping Lyi, Sangbom Pineros, Miguel Thannhauser, Theodore
                                            *- Ted* Ware, Doreen Wiesinger, Jason Yang, Yong


Northeast Area   raymond.glahn@usda.gov


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