About the Authors

Changnian Song

Affiliation College of Horticulture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China

Jinggui Fang

fanggg@njau.edu.cn

Affiliation College of Horticulture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China

Chen Wang

Affiliation College of Horticulture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China

Lei Guo

Affiliation College of Horticulture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China

Kibet Korir Nicholas

Affiliation College of Horticulture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China

Zhengqiang Ma

Affiliation State Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics and Germplasm Enhancement, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: JF ZM. Performed the experiments: CS CW. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: LG. Wrote the paper: CS JF KKN. Conceived, designed and coordinated the study: CS JF. Participated in the design and coordination the study: ZM LG. Constructed the small RNA library: CW. Revised the paper: JF KKN. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.