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THURSDAY. JUNE 3. 2021 PICKENS COUNTY PROGRESS PAGE 5B
Kemp announces $15 million for Boys & Girls Clubs
to address learning gaps caused by COVID-19
Press Release
from Governor’s Office
Atlanta, GA - Tuesday, Governor
Brian P. Kemp announced the availabil
ity of $15 million in Governor's Emer
gency Education Relief (GEER) funds
to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Georgia to
advance student academic achievement
by addressing learning recovery and
other critical needs of youth brought on
by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Specifically, $15 million will be
awarded to serve 9,000 youth. Sub
awards from the Georgia Alliance of
Boys & Girls Clubs will be made to
local Boys & Girls Clubs on number of
youth served at an average cost of
$ 1550/child.
These funds will be distributed
across 34 Boys & Girls Clubs organiza
tions, 141 sites, and 62 counties in
Georgia.
“Throughout the COVID-19 pan
demic, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Geor
gia have done a remarkable job of
serving the needs of youth across the
Peach State,” said Governor Kemp.
“With this GEER funding, the Boys &
Girls Clubs of Georgia will be able to
further enhance student academic
achievement by addressing educational
gaps caused by the pandemic. I look for
ward to seeing the positive impact this
funding has on youth across the State of
Georgia.”
The program goals include ensuring
65% of youth below grade level will re
turn to grade level by the end of the pro
gram term, and 35% of youth will show
an increase or progress toward grade
level achievement.
The funding period is between June
2021 through September 2022, inclu
sive of summer camp, school breaks,
and holidays (fall/spring/winter camps);
and the afterschool program for youth
ages 5-18 (K-12), to be served at club
sites across the Boys & Girls Clubs in
Georgia (at $1,550 cost per child) with
targeted academic support. $4 million
will go toward the grant kick-off and
summer costs for 2021; $7 million will
go toward the 2021-2022 school year
costs; and $4 million will go toward
summer 2022 and the grant closeout.
A look at their ancient, wild past
new peanut variety withstand
may help
disease
Photo/ UGA Extension
Professor David Bertioli and senior research scientist Soraya Leal-Bertioli work together
with peanut plants in their greenhouses at the Center for Applied Genetic Technologies.
By Allison Floyd,
CAES News
The wild relatives of mod
em peanut plants have the
ability to withstand disease in
ways that modem peanut
plants can’t. The genetic di
versity of these wild relatives
means that they can shrug off
the diseases that kill farmers’
peanut crops, but they also
produce tiny nuts that are dif
ficult to harvest because they
burrow deep in the soil.
Consider it a genetic
trade-off— during its evolu
tion, the modem peanut lost
its genetic diversity and
much of the ability to fight
off fungus and viruses, but
gained qualities that make
peanut so affordable, sustain
able and tasty that people all
over the world grow and eat
them.
Modem peanut plants
were created 5,000 to 10,000
years ago, when two diploid
ancestors — plants with two
sets of chromosomes —
came together by chance, and
became tetraploids — plants
with four sets of chromo
somes. While domesticated
peanuts traveled around the
world and show up in cuisine
from Asia to Africa to the
Americas, their wild relatives
stayed close to home in
South America.
Over the past several
years, researchers at the Uni
versity of Georgia, particu
larly at the Wild Peanut Lab
in Athens, have been homing
in on the genetics of those
wild relatives and detailing
where those resiliency traits
lie in their genomes. The goal
has always been to under
stand wild peanut varieties
well enough to make use of
the advantageous ancient
genes — the ones the wild
relatives have, but modem
peanuts lost — while holding
onto the modem traits that
farmers need and consumers
want.
“Most of the wild species
still grow in South America,”
said Soraya Leal-Bertioli,
who runs the Wild Peanut
Lab with her husband, David
Bertioli. “They are present in
many places, but you don't
just come across them on the
streets. One has to have the
‘collector's eye’ to spot them
in the undergrowth.”
Those wild plants can’t
breed with peanut in nature
any longer because they only
have two sets of chromo
somes.
“The wilds are ugly dis
tant relatives that peanut does
not want to mix with,” Leal-
Bertioli said, “but we do the
match making.”
Crossing the wilds
for breeding
Researchers in Athens and
Tifton have successfully
crossed some of those wild
species together to create
tetraploid lines that can be
bred with peanut. Those new
lines will give plant breeders
genetic resources that will
lead to a bumper crop of new
varieties with disease resist
ance and increased sustain
ability. The newly released
lines won’t produce the
peanuts that go into your
PB&J tomorrow, but they are
the parents of the plants that
farmers will grow in coming
years.
The Journal of Plant Reg
istrations published the de
tails about the first of these
germplasm lines this month.
The lines were created by a
team led by the Bertiolis,
who conduct peanut research
through the College of Agri
cultural and Environmental
Science’s (CAES) Institute
for Plant Breeding, Genetics
and Genomics.
The new lines developed
by the Bertiolis are resistant
to early and late leaf spot,
diseases that cost Georgia
peanut producers $20 million
a year, and root-knot nema
tode, a problem that few ap
proved chemicals can fight.
Selecting for disease
resistance over
generations
The second set of new va
rieties come from work done
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in Tifton and led by Ye
“Juliet” Chu, a researchers in
Peggy Ozias-Akins’ lab
within the CAES Department
of Horticulture. These three
varieties are made from five
peanut relatives and show re
sistance to leaf spot.
Creating the first fertile al-
lotetraploids is a challenge,
but then scientists can cross
them with peanut and,
through generations, select
for the right traits. Plant
breeders will be able to take
these lines made from
peanut’s wild relatives and
cross them with modem do
mesticated peanut to get the
best of both — a plant that
looks like peanut and pro
duces nuts with the size and
taste of modem varieties, but
that has the disease-fighting
ability of the wild species.
In Tifton, for example, the
team has crossed the wild
species with cultivated
peanut to get a line that’s
25% wild and 75% culti
vated. Randomly breeding
the two together will create
some plants with small seeds,
weak pegs, sprawling growth
pattern and low yield, but by
using genetic mapping,
breeders can find the plants
that carry disease-fighting
genes and also have attractive
market traits.
“We plan to perform ge
netic mapping with these ma
terials and define the
beneficial wild genomic re
gions for molecular breed
ing,” Chu said.
Using genetic
markers to develop
superior varieties
While plant breeders have
known the value of the diver
sity in wild peanut species for
decades, they couldn’t keep
track of those valuable wild
genes until recently. The
peanut industry in Georgia
and other states has invested
in work to sequence peanut
and the two ancestor species,
knowing that the work to un
derstand the peanut genome
would pay off. With genetic
markers developed using the
genome, breeders not only
can tell that a plant has a de
sirable trait, they know what
genome regions are responsi
ble for that trait and can com
bine DNA profiling with
traditional field selection to
speed the complex process of
developing a new variety.
“It streamlines everything.
You can make a cross, which
produces 1,000 seeds, but be
fore planting them, their
DNA can be profiled. That
way you can see that only 20
of those plants are ideal for
further breeding. Forty years
ago, you’d have to plant them
all, making the process much
more cumbersome,” David
Bertioli said.
With ongoing work, The
Journal of Plant Registration
will document the release of
other peanut germplasm with
resistance to important dis
eases. Releasing the lines,
along with the molecular
markers for their advanta
geous traits, provides the
peanut-breeding community
with genetic resources to pro
duce more resilient crops.
“In the past, we knew
where we were going, but it
was like everyone drew their
own map,” David Bertioli
said. “Now, it’s like we have
GPS. (Scientists) can tell
each other, ‘Here are my co
ordinates. What are yours?’
And all the data is pub
lished.”
For more information
about peanut research being
performed at UGA, visit
peanuts.caes.uga.edu.
nologies.
Clues Across
I. Partner to “flows”
5. French industrial city
9. Diagrams
II. Diplomat
13. Hires
15. Hawaiian island
16. Set aflame
17. Very happy
19. Blue dye
21. Small terrier with short legs
22. One thousand cubic feet
(abbr.)
23. Northern pike genus
25. Expression of annoyance
26. Female deer
27. Casella and Kellerman are
two
29. Actor's lines to audience
31. Days (Spanish)
33. Close a person’s eyes
34 Cloaked
36. Comedic actor Rogen
38. It’s all around us
39. Neutralizes alkalis
41. Native people of New Mexico
43. No seats available
44. Famed “Air Music” composer
46. Fit of irritation
48. Psychic phenomena
52. Knicks’ first-rounder Toppin
53. Seed used in cooking
54. “WandaVision” actress Hahn
56. Samples food
57. In a lucid way
58. Stair part
59. Adieus
Clues Down
1. Type of moth
2. A Christian sacrament
3. It lends books to Bostonians
(abbr.)
4. Turn away
5. Impersonal
6. Shortly
7. Indigenous Alaskans
8. Subtle difference of meaning
9. Sicilian city
10. Put in harmony
11. Administrative divisions
12. As happily
14. Horse mackerel
15. Muddy or boggy ground
18. Monetary unit of Italy
20. Construction site machine
24.22
26. Tracts at the mouths of rivers
28. Earnings
30. Insect repellent
32. Runner-up
34. Musician
|35. Seriousor urgent
37. Esteemed one
38. Where rockers play
40. Work furniture
42. Greek prophetesses
43. Quantitative fact
45. Missing soldiers
47. Minute
49. This (Spanish)
50. Maintain possession of
51. Assault with a knife
55. Holiday text message greeting
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