PFI-TT: Organic innovation in phenylalanine-containing seed coatings and treatments to maximize crops of economic importance

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation - Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project offers alternative products for more sustainable farming practices. The expected outcome of this technology development and commercialization project is expected to reduce pest pressures and increase food security, improving community economic and environmental stability. Growers involved in testing the proposed technology will give feedback on treatment modalities to provide a foundation for commercialization processes. Industry and academic personnel will actively mentor graduate students and undergraduates recruited to the project, with efforts to recruit underrepresented students in STEM. Entrepreneurial training and leadership development of graduate and undergraduate students will consist of immersion in the science and business of food and agriculture. Undergraduate students will have independent projects that contribute to the overall project direction. All students will be involved in the agricultural community which provides a network of training and employment opportunities.The proposed translational research project will develop materials that differentially affect growth processes in the plant life cycle. Resistant pest populations are growing and their management costs billions in lost revenue in the US while contributing to health problems and environmental erosion. Hurdles to attaining sustainable and effective pest treatments include finding novel such as breeding for resistances have created bottlenecks: pest populations adaptations are outpacing the solutions. There are three objectives to this project: 1) Design single and combinatorial products that target pests like soybean cyst nematode; 2) Test the most promising prototypes under field conditions at field sites in various states and across soil types; and 3) Commercialize effective products to address the pests that cause crop loss. The proposed methods may address responses of pest interaction at developmental, cellular and biochemical levels to make products formulated to dysregulate and disrupt known pests. By developing products to exploit plant and pest growth strategies, the project may reveal mechanism(s) of action or a cooperative mechanism between plant biosynthesis and defense pathways, leading to improvements to integrated pest management.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.