A new project led by a Texas A&M AgriLife Research sorghum breeder is aimed at lowering production costs of bioenergy crops, such as sorghum.
AgriLife Research, in conjunction with Carnegie Mellon University, was recently awarded $3.1 million from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, according to AgriLife Today.
Dr. Bill Rooney, AgriLife Research plant breeder, said this funding will be used to develop an automated phenotyping system. This high-throughput plant phenotyping technology, along with transformational modeling and machine-learning approaches, will significantly increase the rate of genetic improvement for biomass yield and resilience.
“An understanding of these traits and their role in productivity is essential to increasing the rate of gain from energy-crop breeding programs,” Rooney said.