Improving turfgrass and urban agriculture production through genomic research Grant uri icon

abstract

  • To feed the increasing human population under climate change conditions, plant breeding innovations are needed to help achieve sustainable agricultural production and food security. Advances in genomics and recently developed genome editing technologies are making precision breeding the favorable approach to effectively address emerging food production challenges associated with climate change-related stressors and loss of arable land. Current advances in plant genomic technologies have provided efficient tools to precisely and efficiently identify genetic variations associated with agriculturally important traits and to better understand the physiological and molecular mechanisms underlying productivity and biotic/abiotic stress tolerance, and to accelerate breeding of better crop varieties for future climate changes. We propose to investigate genome evolution and molecular adaptations of edible (vegetables) and non-edible (turfgrass) urban agriculture crops to better understand the molecular basis of agronomically important traits underlying productivity and stress tolerance and to integrate this information in the molecular genetic improvement of these crops.

date/time interval

  • 2020 - 2025