Quantitative Analysis of Growth in Wild-type and Mutant Plants of the Model C4 Grass, Setaria viridis

Abstract

Setaria viridis (green foxtail) is a C4 annual grass species in the same subfamily as maize and sorghum. It is a widespread weed, and its small size, rapid life cycle, large seed production, and sequenced genome make the species a useful model crop for cereal and biofuel grasses (Doust 2004; Doust 2009; Li et al. 2010; Rizal et al. 2013).  We are interested in the genetic regulation of growth and branching in this species and have produced mutants that are affected in these traits.  Because growth varies over the lifetime of the plant, we are using measurements at multiple time-points to understand how variation in growth leads to different morphologies at maturity.