CAREER: Combining Engineering, Biomechanics, and Genetic Analysis to Enable the Design of Structurally Superior Grain Crops

This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award will combine modern tools from the fields of biomechanics, structural engineering, and genetics to provide new understanding of the factors that contribute to stalk strength of grain crops. The long-term goal of this work is to intentionally optimize (i.e., design) the architecture of grain crops.

These new varieties will have the potential for exceptionally high yield and biofuel production. Maize (corn) is the largest crop in the US and will be the primary subject of this research. Tools and techniques from structural engineering will be used.

These include structural tests, the use of new devices for measuring stalk strength in the field, and focused measurements of the geometry and mechanical properties of maize stalk tissues. Genetic techniques will include the use of breeding experiments to generate a population of maize stalks having a broad range of structural and genetic diversity.

This population will be analyzed to determine the influence of specific genes on maize stalk strength and other key characteristics. Finally, structural and genetic information will be combined to create powerful new computational models of maize stalk strength. These new models will allow optimization studies.

The results will suggest ways for achieving grain crops that are high-yielding while also being suitable for second-generation biofuel production. To carry out this work, students will receive training and extensive mentoring and professional development alongside their scientific training.

The specific aims of this research are: (1) generate genetic and structural diversity through selective breeding and transgenic experiments; (2) perform biomechanical measurements of physical specimens; and (3) use computational modeling to investigate optimal stalk archetypes. Specimen diversity will be created using test-cross and inter-cross breeding experiments.

Biomechanical measurements (bending tests, mechanical tissue tests, and morphological measurements) will be performed on these specimens as well as on transgenic varieties previously generated. This information will be used to quantify the influence of specific candidate genes identified in previous studies. Finally, a parameterized computational modeling platform will be created to allow sensitivity and optimization analyses.

This research is expected to provide valuable new insights on the influences of structural factors and candidate genes on the structural resilience of crops, thus enabling new breeding approaches that seek to follow the optimization results provided by this study. This work is co-funded by the Plant, Fungal and Microbial Developmental Mechanisms program in the Directorate for Biological Sciences, Division of Integrative Organismal Systems.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.