About the Authors

Xu Hu

Roles Conceptualization, Methodology, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

xu.hu@pioneer.com (XH); MARK.E.NELSON@pioneer.com (MEN)

Affiliation DuPont Pioneer, Johnston, Iowa, United States of America

Joseph P. Steimel

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Visualization

Affiliation DuPont Pioneer, Johnston, Iowa, United States of America

Deirdre M. Kapka-Kitzman

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Validation

Affiliation DuPont Pioneer, Johnston, Iowa, United States of America

Courtney Davis-Vogel

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Validation

Affiliation DuPont Pioneer, Johnston, Iowa, United States of America

Nina M. Richtman

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology

Affiliation DuPont Pioneer, Johnston, Iowa, United States of America

John P. Mathis

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis

Affiliation DuPont Pioneer, Johnston, Iowa, United States of America

Mark E. Nelson

Roles Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

xu.hu@pioneer.com (XH); MARK.E.NELSON@pioneer.com (MEN)

Affiliation DuPont Pioneer, Johnston, Iowa, United States of America

Albert L. Lu

Roles Funding acquisition, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation DuPont Pioneer, Johnston, Iowa, United States of America

Gusui Wu

Roles Funding acquisition, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Current address: Syngenta, Foster City, California, United States of America

Affiliation DuPont Pioneer, Hayward, California, United States of America

Competing Interests

I have read the journal’s policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: XH, JPS, DMKK, NMR, CDV, JPM, MEN, ALL, and GW were employed by DuPont Pioneer during the conduct of this research; XH and NMR are inventors on a patent application which includes the sequences described in this manuscript. This does not alter adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.