GCR: Accelerating Progress Toward Intrinsic Genetic Solutions to Sustainable Agricultural Intensification

这个不断增长的融合研究项目旨在通过深度整合生命科学(植物生物学、农学、遗传学)、物理科学(工程学)和计算科学来改进作物。具体目标是开发工具和应用方法，利用这些领域的进展来加速作物改良进程--这是一项具有全球重要性的成果。提出者寻求在他们在植物结构测量方面的早期进展的基础上，扩大规模以适应大量种群，加快数据处理，并增强科学可视化，以有效地将图像与后处理算法提供的丰富信息配对。此外，重要的是超越对生长轨迹的量化，并将这些与作物产量的测量联系起来，揭示作为产量的准确替代的测量的子集，以及作为显著基因诊断的DNA标记。这一多学科项目在许多层面上与学生和公众的教育密切相关。研究人员将在长期和积极参与代表不足群体的有才华的成员的基础上再接再厉。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Growing Convergence Research project aims at crop improvements through deep integration across life sciences (plant biology, agronomy, genetics), physical sciences (engineering), and computational sciences. Specific goals are to develop tools and apply methods that capitalize on advances in these respective fields to provide acceleration of crop improvement progress -- an outcome of worldwide importance.The proposers seek to build on their early progress in measurement of plant architecture, increasing scale to accommodate large populations, accelerating data processing and enhancing scientific visualization to efficiently pair imagery with rich information provided by post-processing algorithms. Further, it is important to go beyond quantification of growth trajectories and link these to measurements of crop yield, to reveal subsets of measurements that are accurate proxies for yield, and DNA markers that are diagnostic of salient genes. This multidisciplinary project is closely tied to the education of students and the public at many levels. The researchers will build on their long and positive involvement with talented members of underrepresented groups.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.