Improving Crops Through Genotyping and Phenotyping

University Communication Author

06/04/2019 Added

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As part of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Center for Plant Science Innovation, James Schnable works to improve crops through genotyping and phenotyping using tools unique to Nebraska.

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[00:00:00.000](upbeat music)
[00:00:02.430]By 2050, we're gonna need twice as much food
[00:00:04.740]from the same land as we grow today
[00:00:06.320]in order to feed the world's growing population.
[00:00:10.890]We're standing in the Beadle Center greenhouse
[00:00:12.530]that's on the city campus
[00:00:13.363]of the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.
[00:00:15.050]Around me you see a diverse set of corn and sorghum plants
[00:00:17.520]that we use to understand how the genes in corn and sorghum
[00:00:20.990]determine the final properties of plants and crops.
[00:00:25.120]The focus of what's going on here is to take samples
[00:00:28.040]from plants and be able to measure either variation in DNA,
[00:00:30.870]variation in gene expression, that sort of thing.
[00:00:33.190]If we can understand how genotype
[00:00:34.940]determines the traits of a plant, we have a better shot
[00:00:37.640]at being able to meet the growing demand
[00:00:39.290]for food and fuel around the world.
[00:00:41.370]In order to do that,
[00:00:42.203]we need to collect many many measurements
[00:00:44.150]from hundreds and thousands of plants.
[00:00:46.200]Not just in one environment,
[00:00:47.410]but in many different environments.
[00:00:48.400]So different places around the state,
[00:00:50.030]different years, different stress treatments.
[00:00:54.290]A lot of the work we do at the University of Nebraska
[00:00:56.010]is in developing high throughput
[00:00:57.160]of phenotyping technologies.
[00:00:59.530]Phenotyping is very fancy word for a very simple concept,
[00:01:02.060]which is just measuring the properties of plants.
[00:01:05.040]So these are things like the automated greenhouse,
[00:01:07.470]the Spidercam facility,
[00:01:09.100]also a lot of drone-based and robotic phenotyping.
[00:01:12.500]And so now we have tools that most other universities lack,
[00:01:15.040]which allow us to be developing the methods
[00:01:17.640]and approaches that I think everyone
[00:01:19.110]will be using five, 10, or 20 years from now.
[00:01:22.890]We were able to release the first complete version
[00:01:25.180]of the proso millet genome.
[00:01:26.510]What's really exciting about proso millet
[00:01:28.240]is that it can use water much more efficiently
[00:01:30.630]than even sorghum and much more than corn.
[00:01:32.930]Now that we have this reference genome,
[00:01:34.960]it will be possible for us to go and identify differences
[00:01:37.860]between different proso millet varieties,
[00:01:39.780]identify variants of genes that are more or less useful
[00:01:42.910]for getting higher yield and varieties,
[00:01:45.010]and, hopefully, develop new varieties
[00:01:46.580]that will be both higher yielding
[00:01:48.210]and have better agronomic performance.
[00:01:50.720]Yeah, so I won the North American Plant
[00:01:52.740]Phenotyping Network's Early Career investigator award.
[00:01:55.990]I was the inaugural award.
[00:01:57.510]Plant phenotyping is just such a new field
[00:01:59.750]and so being able to be a part of this
[00:02:01.550]new emerging community feels really good.

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Improving Crops Through Genotyping and Phenotyping

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