To avoid competing with land use for food crops, biofuel crops are often grown on marginal land. Understanding how to improve soil health and provide enhance stress tolerance traits is essential for improving biofuel production. This study aims to explore the genome level diversity that exists in the important crop model Brassica rapa, a relative of canola that has tremendous variation in crop types from chinese cabbage, turnip and oilseed varieties. By understanding how these crop types respond to stress, researchers can develop more targeted breeding efforts for biofuel crop improvement.
Proposer: Katie Greenham, University of Minnesota
Proposal: Leveraging pan-genomes to investigate diel transcriptomic and metabolomic responses to abiotic stress in B. rapa and B. napus diversity panels.