USDA Funds Genetic Engineering Research for Switchgrass Biofuels

-  July 24, 2014, Farm­ers’ Advance

Michi­gan State Uni­ver­si­ty (MSU) plant biol­o­gist C. Robin Buell has been award­ed $1 mil­lion from a joint U.S. Depart­ment of Ener­gy and U.S. Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture (USDA) pro­gram to accel­er­ate genet­ic breed­ing pro­grams to improve plant feed­stock for the pro­duc­tion of bio­fu­els, bio-pow­er and bio-based products.

Specif­i­cal­ly, the MSU Col­lege of Nat­ur­al Sci­ence researcher will work to iden­ti­fy the genet­ic fac­tors that reg­u­late cold har­di­ness in switch­grass, a plant native to North Amer­i­ca that holds high poten­tial as a bio­fu­el source.

“This project will explore the genet­ic basis for cold tol­er­ance that will per­mit the breed­ing of improved switch­grass cul­ti­vars that can yield high­er bio­mass in north­ern cli­mates,” said Buell, also an MSU AgBioRe­search sci­en­tist. “It’s part of an ongo­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion with sci­en­tists in the USDA Agri­cul­tur­al Research Ser­vice to explore diver­si­ty in native switch­grass as a way to improve its yield and qual­i­ty as a bio­fu­el feedstock.”

One of the pro­posed meth­ods to increase the bio­mass of switch­grass, and there­fore its util­i­ty as a bio­fu­el, is to grow low­land vari­eties in north­ern lat­i­tudes, where they flower lat­er in the season.

Low­land switch­grass is not adapt­ed to the cold­er con­di­tions of a north­ern cli­mate, how­ev­er, and many plants do not sur­vive the win­ter. In most cas­es, a small per­cent­age of the plants do make it through the sea­son, and it is these hardy sur­vivors that are the sub­ject of Buel­l’s research.

“Dr. Buel­l’s invest­ment in this col­lab­o­ra­tive project will iden­ti­fy impor­tant genet­ic ele­ments in switch­grass that con­trol sur­vival over the win­ter and can be used to breed bet­ter adapt­ed cul­ti­vars to meet bio­mass pro­duc­tion needs,” added Richard Triemer, chair of the MSU Depart­ment of Plant Biology.

By study­ing the genet­ic com­po­si­tion of switch­grass, Buell said she hopes to iden­ti­fy alter­na­tive forms of the same gene that con­fer cold har­di­ness to switch­grass plants. These could then be applied in breed­ing pro­grams to pro­duce switch­grass plants that can thrive in north­ern climates.

The research is an exten­sion of Buel­l’s involve­ment in the Great Lakes Bioen­er­gy Research Cen­ter, a col­lab­o­ra­tive enter­prise between MSU, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin-Madi­son and the U.S. Depart­ment of Ener­gy that works to meet the nation’s need for a com­pre­hen­sive suite of clean ener­gy technologies.