Minor Cereal and Legume Research Team

Team Name:Minor Cereal and Legume Research Team

Research Focus: Collection, conservation, evaluation and diversity identification of minor cereal germplasm resources; Selection and improvement of elite parental breeding lines through mutagenesis induction by chemical, physical and genome modification methods; Breeding and demonstration of new varieties for field minor cereal crops production in China; Molecular genetics and functional gene cloning of major agrinomically important traits for molecular breeding of minor cereal and legume crops.

Research objectives:Providing new varieties and technological support for minor crops, including foxtail millet, oat, buckwheat, broom corn millet, common bean, mung bean and horsebean etc., to enhance national food production of China.

Team Chief:Dr. DIAO Xian-min

Education Background

Ph.D.   Major in plant physiology, Beijing Botany Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences. 1998, China;

M. S.   Major in plant genetics & breeding, Huazhong Agricultural University, 1988, China;

B. S.   Major in plant genetics & breeding, Hebei Agricultural University, 1984, China.

Research Area

I am interested in the following fields of research: (1) Initiation of Setaria, both Setaria italica and S. viridis as a model system for the grasses, including marker development, EMS mutant library construction, data base establishment etc. (2) Domestication of foxtail millet and evolution of the Setaria genus. (3). Functional gene mining of drought tolerant related genes from Setaria. (4) Functional gene mining of C₄ photosynthesis related genes from Setaria.

Publications

Guanqing Jia#, Xuehui Huang#, Hui Zhi#, Yan Zhao#, Qiang Zhao, Wenjun Li, Yang Chai, Lifang Yang, Kunyan Liu, Hengyun Lu, Chuanrang Zhu, Yiqi Lu, Congcong Zhou, Danlin Fan, Qijun Weng, Yunli Guo, Tao Huang, Lei Zhang, Tingting Lu, Qi Feng, Hangfei Hao, Hongkuan Liu, Ping Lu, Ning Zhang,Yuhui Li, Erhu Guo, Shujun Wang, Suying Wang, Jinrong Liu, Wenfei Zhang, Guoqiu Chen, Baojin Zhang, Wei Li, Yongfang Wang, Haiquan Li, Baohua Zhao, Jiayang Li*, Xianmin Diao*, Bin Han*, 2013, A haplotype map of genomic variations and genome-wide association studies of agronomic traits in foxtail millet (Setaria italica) Nature Genetics, 45(8):957-961

Guanqing Jia, Shenkui Shi, Chunfang Wang, Zhenggang Niu, Yang Chai, Hui Zhi* and Xianmin Diao*, 2013, Molecular diversity and population structure of Chinese green foxtail (Setaria viridis (L.) Beauv.) revealed by microsatellite analysis, Journal of Experimental Botany, -64(12):3645-3655

Meicheng Zhao, Hui Zhi, Andrew N. Doust, Wei Li, Yongfang Wang, Haiquan Li, Guanqing Jia, Yongqiang Wang, Ning Zhang, Xianmin Diao*, 2013, Novel genomes and genome constitutions identified by GISH and 5S rDNA and Knotted 1 genomic sequences in the genus Setaria, BMC Genomics, 14:244

Shuo Zhang, Chanjuan Tang1, Qiang Zhao, Jing Li, Lifang Yang, Lufeng Qie, Xingke Fan, Lin Li, Ning Zhang, Meicheng Zhao, Xiaotong Liu, Yang Chai, Xue Zhang, Hailong Wang, Yingtao Li, Wen Li, Hui Zhi, Guanqing Jia, Xianmin Diao*, 2014, Development and characterization of highly polymorphic SSR (Simple Sequence Repeat) markers through genome-wide microsatellite variants analysis in Foxtail millet [Setaria italica (L.) P. Beauv.] , BMC Genomics, 2014, 15:78

Guanqing Jia#., Xiaotong Liu#., James C.Schnable, Zhengang Niu, Chunfang Wang, Yuhui Li, Shujun Wang, Suying Wang, Jinrong Liu, Erhu Guo, Hui Zhi, Diao X*, 2015,  Microsatellite variations of elite Setaria varieties released during last six decades in China. PLoS One, 10(5):e0125688.

Academic membership

Director, Millets crop Branch, Chinese Association of Agricultural Science Societies

Team Members:WANG Zeng-yuan, WANG Li-xia, LI Gui-ying, ZHI Hui, JIA Guan-qing, WU Jing, YAN Hong-shan, LIU Min-xuan, YUAN Xing-miao, WANG Ke, CHEN Hong-lin, GAO Jia, TANG Sha, LIU Si-chen, XIANG Ji-shan.