About the Authors

Eleni Bachlava

Current address: Monsanto Company, Woodland, California, United States of America

Affiliation Center for Applied Genetic Technologies, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States of America

Christopher A. Taylor

Current address: Monsanto Company, Chesterfield, Missouri, United States of America

Affiliation Center for Applied Genetic Technologies, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States of America

Shunxue Tang

Current address: Dow AgroSciences LLC, Indianapolis, Indiana, United States of America

Affiliation Center for Applied Genetic Technologies, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States of America

John E. Bowers

Affiliations Center for Applied Genetic Technologies, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States of America, Department of Plant Biology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States of America

Jennifer R. Mandel

Affiliation Department of Plant Biology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States of America

John M. Burke

jmburke@uga.edu

Affiliation Department of Plant Biology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States of America

Steven J. Knapp

Current address: Monsanto Company, Woodland, California, United States of America

Affiliation Center for Applied Genetic Technologies, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States of America

Competing Interests

This study was funded by Advanta Semillas, Dow Agrosciences, Pioneer Hi-Bred and Syngenta. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials, as detailed online in the guide for authors.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: EB ST JMB SJK. Performed the experiments: EB CAT ST. Analyzed the data: EB CAT JEB JRM JMB. Wrote the paper: EB JEB JRM JMB SJK.