Donald Danforth Plant Science Center researchers dig deep into sorghum

In Missouri, researchers from Donald Danforth Plant Science Center will lead a multi-institutional project to deepen the understanding of sorghum, a versatile bioenergy crop, and its response to environmental challenges. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Biological and Environmental Research (BER) program supports the three-year $2.5 million project for Genomics-Enabled Understanding and Advancing Knowledge on Plant Gene Function. 

Tailoring crop productivity to variable growing environments, including resilience to and recovery from weather episodes such as flash droughts, is critical to expanding production ranges. This is particularly important for bioenergy crops to ensure they do not compete with food supplies while enhancing agronomic resilience and sustainability. Sorghum is a cereal crop with natural resilience to drought and heat stresses and is therefore an attractive system for developing crop production on resource-limited land. The project explores the natural variation and gene networks underlying sorghum’s remarkable stress resilience and seeks to define the functions of critical genes and how they are regulated.