About the Authors

Mingsheng Qi

Affiliation Department of Crop Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, United States of America

Dongping Wang

Affiliation Department of Crop Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, United States of America

Carl A. Bradley

Affiliation Department of Crop Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, United States of America

Youfu Zhao

zhao888@illinois.edu

Affiliation Department of Crop Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: YFZ CAB MSQ. Performed the experiments: MSQ DPW CAB YFZ. Analyzed the data: MSQ DPW YFZ. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MSQ DPW CAB YFZ. Wrote the paper: YFZ MSQ.