Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** lettuce is one of the most…

Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** lettuce is one of the most valuable, widely consumed vegetable crops and a major contributor to the quality of the american diet. This srep addresses two mandated focus areas: research in plant breeding, genetics, genomics, and other methods to improve crop characteristics; efforts to improve production efficiency, handling and processing, productivity, and profitability over the long term. This is a highly collaborative, multi-state, long-term project that is the foundation of public and private sector lettuce improvement programs. Primary stakeholders are public and commercial breeders and lettuce grower/shippers that we communicate extensively with to ensure our objectives are closely aligned with their needs and our products are efficiently disseminated and utilized. We will focus on the genetic basis of nitrogen, water, and phosphate use efficiencies, tolerance to abiotic stresses, and root architecture. We will develop and release molecular markers for these traits. We will clone the determinative underlying genes as the foundation for gene editing strategies. We will expand the deployment of the cropmanage decision tool to optimize water and fertilizer use in growers' fields in california, arizona, and florida. We will examine the economics of adoption of the genetic and cultural interventions from the project. We will train breeders to operate in a data-rich environment. Deliverables include: extensive information on the genetics of these important horticultural traits; molecular markers for selection of improved resource use efficiency and tolerance to abiotic stresses; advanced breeding lines; the breeder-oriented genes to growers website; and software that increases efficiency of water and fertilizer use.