SBIR Phase I: In vitro cultivation of sweet cherry

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛影响是从根本上提高植物农业的效率，对人类和当地生态系统都有深远的影响。在过去60年中，由于作物育种和基因工程的结合，化肥和农药的采用以及灌溉，农业土地生产力增加了约3倍。通过扩大对植物发育生物学的理解，通过该项目开发的技术将通过高密度种植植物的可食用果实，而不是支持根，叶或茎，将生产力提高300倍。这项创新将使室内水果生产不受当地气候和生长季节的影响。受控环境水果作物种植将缓解粮食不安全和粮食沙漠，创造一个分散的、有弹性的全球粮食生产系统，即使在工业区或非耕地也是如此。同时，以前用于传统农业的土地可以恢复到自然生态系统，供水将不再受到农用化学品的污染。此外，受控环境水果作物种植将通过不需要土壤管理来应对气候变化，这可以使美国的年温室气体排放量减少5%，或3.25亿公吨二氧化碳当量。该项目代表了传统农业之外的扩展：种子或插条必须生长才能再生完整的植物，然后可以收获产品和种子或插条，无限期重复。拟议的项目将推进对甜樱桃花和果实发育的了解前沿，并以一种果树物种为例，该树种通常需要在果园环境中生长数年，然后才能充分开花并收获果实。预期的结果将证明在没有其他植物结构的情况下形成花的可行性，展示植物生物技术在使果树品种适应受控环境农业中的应用。该项目的目标是产生全能植物细胞，并诱导这些细胞早期开花，营养生长最少或没有。通过结合植物生物技术、组织培养基测试和受控的非生物因素（如光照和温度），在体外重建适当的环境，植物细胞将被引导形成花朵，并绕过营养结构（如叶子和树枝）的生长。该项目将展示甜樱桃室内栽培的潜力，从而实现专有樱桃品种、植物生长培养基和新型受控环境农业方法的规模化生产。 该项目展示了一种新的模式，在这种模式下，一个完整的植物是永远不会生长的，而是允许隔离生产和收获特定的植物组织。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得支持的，通过评估使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to radically increase the efficiency of plant agriculture, with far-reaching implications for both humans and native ecosystems. Agricultural land productivity has increased approximately 3-fold in the past 60 years, due to a combination of crop breeding and genetic engineering, adoption of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and irrigation. By expanding understanding of plant developmental biology, the technology developed via this project will increase productivity by 300-fold over current practices via high density cultivation of only the edible fruits of plants, not the supporting roots, leaves, or stems. The innovation will enable indoor fruit production independent of local climate and growing seasons. Controlled environment fruit crop cultivation will alleviate food insecurity and food deserts, creating a decentralized, resilient global food production system, even in industrial areas or non-arable land. Concurrently, land formerly used for conventional agriculture can be restored to natural ecosystems, and water supplies will no longer be subjected to contamination by agrichemicals. Additionally, controlled environment fruit crop cultivation will combat climate change by making soil management unnecessary, which could decrease annual greenhouse gas emissions in the United States by 5%, or 325 M metric tons CO2 equivalent. This project represents an expansion beyond traditional agriculture: that a seed or cutting must be grown to regenerate a full plant, from which products and seeds or cuttings can then be harvested, repeating indefinitely. The proposed project will advance the frontier of understanding of flower and fruit development in sweet cherry, and example of a fruit tree species that normally requires years of growth in an orchard setting before sufficient flowering occurs and fruit can be harvested. The anticipated results will prove the feasibility of flower formation in the absence of other plant structures, demonstrating the application of plant biotechnology to adapt fruit tree species to controlled environment agriculture. The goals of the project are to generate totipotent plant cells and induce early flowering from those cells with minimal to no vegetative growth. By combining plant biotechnology techniques, tissue culture media testing and controlled abiotic factors such as light and temperature to recreate the appropriate environment in vitro, plant cells will be directed to form flowers and bypass growth of vegetative structures such as leaves and branches. This project will demonstrate the potential of indoor cultivation of sweet cherry, leading to scaled production of proprietary cherry cultivars, plant growth media, and novel controlled environment agriculture methods. The proposed project demonstrates a new paradigm, in which a complete plant is never grown, but instead allows isolated production and harvesting of specific plant tissues.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.