Xiwen Cai, NDSU wheat geneticist and associate professor of plant sciences, in collaboration with USDA-ARS research geneticist Shiaoman Chao, was awarded a four-year, $500,000 grant by the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative through the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. The grant is titled “Enriching and Understanding the Wheat Genome by Inducing Homoeologous Recombination.”

Nearly $9 million in grants were awarded nationwide for research in plant breeding and production to improve U.S. agriculture production, sustainability and competitiveness. Sonny Ramaswamy, National Institute of Food and Agriculture director, said the research funded by the grants “will allow us to successfully face challenges in food security, bioenergy, climate change and increasing global competition.”

The research will address the problem of limited genetic variability in wheat germplasm while augmenting the gene pool needed for progressive wheat breeding. The goal is to “expand genetic variability of the wheat genome and to develop a physical map of the wheat genome.” The researchers will introduce genes for characteristics such as disease resistance and salt/waterlogging tolerance from wild species into wheat and perform physical mapping of the wheat genome by “inducing meiotic homoeologous recombination.”

NDSU is recognized as one of the nation's top 108 public and private universities by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education.