U of I receives $1 million USDA grant to study Glossy15 in sorghum

EurekaAlert.com
Public release date: 8-Sep-2010

URBANA – A $1 million USDA Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) grant will help University of Illinois researchers determine if changes in the Glossy15 gene system of sorghum will lead to enhanced bioenergy production in the future.

"Understanding how to modify crops we already know about and tailoring them to bioenergy uses is becoming increasingly important," said Stephen Moose, U of I professor of crop sciences and member of the Energy Biosciences Institute in the Institute for Genomic Biology. "If we really want to make this happen, we need to tailor our crops to local environments and develop crops that are economically and environmentally sustainable."

In order to improve biomass yields and conversion to bioenergy, plant traits such as growth habit, sensitivity to day length, flowering time, carbon partitioning, and nutrient use efficiency must be improved, Moose said.

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