The project, which ensures that the top fringes of the parent corn lines do not shed pollen, was accepted within the scope of TÜBİTAK ARDEB. The project was designed by Rahime Cengiz who is a faculty member at SUAS (Sakarya University of Applied Sciences) Faculty of Agricultural Sciences and Technologies, Department of Field Crops.

The project, titled 'Development of Cytoplasmic Male Vicious Corn Lines with Advanced Breeding Techniques' prepared by Rahime Cengiz who is a faculty member at SUAS - Faculty of Agricultural Sciences and Technologies, Department of Field Crops, was accepted within the scope of TUBITAK Scientific and Technological Research Projects Support Program (ARDEB). Prof. Dr. Mehmet Sarıbıyık, Rector of SUAS, stated that “we will continue to give academic support to Turkey's agricultural activities. In today’s world, agriculture and food are at the forefront as much as health. Our newly established Faculty of Health Sciences and Faculty of Agricultural Sciences and Technologies will produce important projects and practices. I congratulate our faculty member for this project and I wish all success in the rest of the process.”

SHORTER BREEDING TIME

The project, which will be carried out jointly with the Corn Research Institute, aims to prevent the native and national maize varieties of seed parental corn lines from falling out of the pollen. In this way, it will be tried to realize a more economical and more efficient seed production by decreasing both labor and cost and machine use, especially in domestic and national corn varieties. At present, in the field of hybrid seed production, it is necessary to work at the field at least 3 times on different days with workers and machinery. This may cause damage to the leaves and the plant during the manual ripping of the top tassel or machine cutting, and that will result in yield loss. The private sector with foreign capital is currently using the technique called cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) in hybrid corn seed production. It takes about 7 years for the CMS feature to be transferred to the parent of hybrid corn. In the accepted project of SUAS Faculty Member Dr. Cengiz, a technique called in vivo paternal haploid is used which shortens the breeding period. Thus, it takes 1 year to develop CMS features. This method enables the development of local and national varieties in a shorter time.