The Salk Institute has received an $18 million grant from the Bezos Earth Fund to test whether deeper-rooted soybeans can store more carbon in soil and better withstand drought and disease in field conditions. The three-year project, called ROOTS, moves Salk’s climate-focused crop research into a new proof-of-concept phase. Scientists will use artificial intelligence (AI), field trials, soil carbon studies, and plant-microbe science to develop and test soybean plants with deeper, stronger roots.
The grant builds on a $30 million Bezos Earth Fund grant in 2020 that helped support the first phase of Salk’s Harnessing Plants Initiative. That work enabled Salk scientists to identify 347 potential gene candidates tied to carbon-storing root traits and advance 37 projects across genes and crops.
“We are deeply grateful to the Bezos Earth Fund for their partnership and vision,” says Wolfgang Busch, PhD, professor and director of Salk’s Harnessing Plants Initiative. “Harnessing the power of plants to address global challenges begins with foundational science and understanding how plants interact with soil, microbes, and environmental stresses. This support allows us to uncover how roots grow and function in complex environments and swiftly translate those discoveries into solutions that benefit farmers, ecosystems, and communities around the world.”
Roots are one of the hidden and often overlooked parts of the food system, but they play an outsized role in plant health and soil carbon. Deeper roots can push carbon below the layer of soil most often disturbed by farming. Larger root systems can add more plant material underground. Roots rich in suberin, a natural cork-like compound, can help carbon remain in soil longer because suberin breaks down slowly.
For the Bezos Earth Fund, the farmer test is central.
“The Bezos Earth Fund looks for innovations that can change the equation for people and the planet,” says Andy Jarvis, PhD, director of Future of Food at the Bezos Earth Fund. “ROOTS is a golden opportunity to develop the next generation of crops, plants that are productive and resilient for farmers and able to draw carbon dioxide from the air and store it in the soil. That is the kind of solution agriculture needs.”
Source : salk.edu