Center for Root and Rhizobiome Innovation
Curt Bright
Author
12/22/2017
Added
22
Plays
Description
Sponsored by the National Science Foundation EPSCoR Award
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- [00:00:00.984](uplifting choral music)
- [00:00:11.841]Plant roots reach into the earth,
- [00:00:13.993]anchoring downward and channeling resources
- [00:00:16.393]up from the soil, sustaining life.
- [00:00:19.491]This is where food begins.
- [00:00:21.984](uplifting choral music)
- [00:00:29.838]Yet, the plant root zone is largely uncharted frontier.
- [00:00:34.368]According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture,
- [00:00:36.796]there are more microorganisms
- [00:00:38.592]in a teaspoon of healthy soil
- [00:00:40.651]than there are people on Earth.
- [00:00:43.162]How plant roots, soil nutrients,
- [00:00:45.410]and microbial chemistry interact shapes food production,
- [00:00:49.227]which can mean life or death.
- [00:00:51.798]The National Science Foundation
- [00:00:53.386]issued a 20 million-dollar five-year research project
- [00:00:56.811]to establish the Center for Root
- [00:00:58.871]and Rhizobiome Innovation in Nebraska,
- [00:01:01.633]where agriculture is the state's largest economic sector.
- [00:01:05.863]Microbiome is the new wave of science
- [00:01:09.440]in the life sciences in so many ways.
- [00:01:12.988]The center is a partnership
- [00:01:14.369]among Nebraska EPSCoR, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
- [00:01:18.181]the University of Nebraska at Kearney,
- [00:01:20.862]the University of Nebraska Medical Center,
- [00:01:23.246]and Doane University.
- [00:01:25.229](uplifting choral music)
- [00:01:30.750]CRRI Nebraska scientists and facilities
- [00:01:34.528]are equipped to understand plant systems
- [00:01:37.440]and address the grand challenge of world hunger.
- [00:01:41.101]Research teams of plant scientists,
- [00:01:43.687]computational biologists, and leading educators
- [00:01:46.797]apply multidisciplinary perspectives
- [00:01:49.296]to help crops become more productive
- [00:01:51.508]and feed the world's growing population.
- [00:01:54.374]The project is built on a framework
- [00:01:56.329]of systems in synthetic biology,
- [00:01:58.770]and what I mean by this is that we want to understand
- [00:02:01.127]at a detailed level how root metabolism works.
- [00:02:04.824]And with this information, we can more predictably reprogram
- [00:02:08.588]root metabolism to make desired compounds.
- [00:02:11.594]So the compounds that we are most interested
- [00:02:13.513]are those that are secreted by roots,
- [00:02:15.265]and these are compounds that we call exudates.
- [00:02:18.221]And these can attract beneficial microbes to the crop plant
- [00:02:21.454]to improve how efficiently they use
- [00:02:23.850]soil, water, and nutrients.
- [00:02:25.876]Our ultimate goal is to devise
- [00:02:27.397]new ways to improve crop productivity
- [00:02:29.498]with limited water and soil fertility.
- [00:02:32.528]And the instruments like the ones here
- [00:02:34.149]are used to probe the metabolism of the root
- [00:02:36.502]and determine the types of exudates that the roots produce.
- [00:02:39.874]So we've developed a method to
- [00:02:43.733]take an impression of the root that allows us to see
- [00:02:47.992]certain chemicals that are being produced by the plant,
- [00:02:51.436]and then we want to investigate how that affects
- [00:02:54.933]the way microbes grow on the root.
- [00:02:58.020]The project includes community outreach
- [00:03:00.502]to get kids excited about science and future careers
- [00:03:03.916]through science cafes, summer camps, and internships.
- [00:03:08.841]The Center for Root and Rhizobiome Innovation
- [00:03:12.160]helps Nebraskans join in the discoveries
- [00:03:14.565]cultivating a better future for our world.
- [00:03:18.017](uplifting choral music)
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