Quantifying Crop Biomechanics Across Plant Lifespans

这笔拨款将支持基础作物生物力学的研究，这将增强基础科学知识，并为未来的农业可持续发展做出贡献。在农业领域，不可预测的强风暴会对农作物造成重大损害。这包括由于机械故障造成的作物损失。这种机械故障被称为倒伏，可能是茎断或植物连根拔起的结果。农作物机械故障的研究一直受到不受控制和不可预测的天气模式的限制。相反，最近开发了测量植物机械性能的工具，并将这些测量结果与植物的弹性和抗倒伏性联系起来。这项工作将量化玉米（玉米）植物生命周期内的植物力学，并确定影响植物力学的细胞信号和结构特征。了解植物力学是如何建立的，为开发机械抗逆性作物提供了基础。这将加强农业的未来，农业是美国经济的重要组成部分。该项目解决了多尺度信号感知在植物生命周期中形成作物生物力学的问题。在了解作物在受到动力（如风）作用时与寿命相关的生物力学适应和机械生物学反应方面存在一个主要的知识缺口。该项目验证了一种假设，即与寿命相关的植物抗弯刚度变化是由于细胞水平的机械接收与生长植物结构相互作用的动力。为了解决这一假设，研究人员将量化玉米在生命周期内弯曲刚度的变化，并确定细胞水平的机械传感和植物结构是否在建立寿命弯曲刚度中起作用。本课题的研究将连接多尺度作物生物力学，为未来作物改良提供基础。该项目由生物力学和力学生物学项目和促进竞争性研究的既定项目（EPSCoR）共同资助。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This grant will support research in fundamental crop biomechanics, which will enhance basic scientific knowledge and contribute to the future of agricultural sustainability. In agriculture, unpredictable severe storms can cause significant crop damage. This includes crop loss due to mechanical failure. This mechanical failure is called lodging, and can be the outcome of stem breaking or plant uprooting. Research on crop mechanical failure has been limited by uncontrolled and unpredictable weather patterns. Instead, tools have recently been developed to measure plant mechanical properties and link these measurements to plant resilience and lodging-resistance. This work will quantify plant mechanics over the lifespan of a maize (corn) plant, and determine the cellular signals and architectural features that influence plant mechanics. Understanding how plant mechanics are established provides a foundation for the development of mechanically resilient crops. This will enhance the future of agriculture, which is a significant portion of the U.S. economy. This project addresses the problem of multi-scale signal perception in shaping crop biomechanics across plant lifespans. A major knowledge gap exists in understanding lifespan-related biomechanical adaption and mechanobiological response of crop plants when subject to dynamic forces (e.g., wind). This project tests the hypothesis that lifespan-related changes to plant flexural stiffness are due to cellular-level mechanoreception of dynamic forces interacting with growing plant architectures. To address this hypothesis, the researchers will quantify changes in maize flexural stiffness over lifespans and determine if there is a role of cellular-level mechanosensing and plant architecture in establishing lifespan flexural stiffness. Overall, the research in this project will link multi-scale crop biomechanics and provide a foundation for future crop improvement. This project is jointly funded by the Biomechanics & Mechanobiology program and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).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.