A new National Science Foundation grant will bring $1.9 million to KU to test specific types of microscopic soil fungi for their potential to build drought tolerance in wheat and rice.
With the human population projected to grow for the next 50 to 60 years and the amount of arable land shrinking, building drought tolerance is a major strategy for increasing food production. It would reduce the need for irrigation and help protect water supplies.
The newly funded four-year project on building drought tolerance in these two crops is a collaboration among researchers at KU, Kansas State University, Arkansas State University and the University of Nebraska. Arkansas State is the lead institution on the overall project, with $2.2 million in funding as part of a total award of nearly $6 million.
Kansas produces 20% of all U.S. wheat, averaging more than 330 million bushels annually. Rice isn’t grown in Kansas, but around 45% of U.S.-produced rice—about 9 billion pounds—comes from Arkansas.
“Soil microbes can have a big influence on crop resilience to drought, and this project will test benefits of an important group of soil fungi that associate with plant roots,” said Jim Bever, the lead researcher at KU. Bever is Foundation Distinguished Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and a senior scientist at the Kansas Biological Survey & Center for Ecological Research.
Source : ku.edu