Short project description

Intermediate wheatgrass (Thinopyrum intermedium; Kernza) is being domesticated as a perennial grain crop with potential environmental benefits and emerging value as a dual-purpose crop providing both grain and forage/biomass. However, grain yield remains low and highly variable, and breeding programs emphasize improved seed size, reduced shattering, and enhanced threshability alongside increased grain yield. Understanding plant-to-plant variation and the correlation structure among grain yield components (e.g., head number, grain number, kernel weight) and whole above ground biomass is essential to define practical selection criteria for dual-purpose ideotypes and to identify potential trade-offs or synergies.

This project quantifies within-population plant-to-plant variation of grain yield and key yield components and evaluates correlations between grain-related traits and a forage biomass measure collected on the same individuals. The analysis will combine descriptive variability metrics and correlation analyses, and, where appropriate, a yield-component path/structural equation framework to clarify direct and indirect relationships among components.