Year Awarded 2021
FFAR award amount $385,512
Total award amount $535,512
Location Davis, CA
Program Accelerated Crop Breeding
Matching Funders Limagrain Europe
Grantee Institution University of California Davis
Editing a plant’s genes can help the plant thrive during drought, extreme heat and other climate change-related crises. While this technology is key to future food security, it is expensive and relies on time-consuming tissue culturing – putting it out of reach of smaller labs. Due to the expense, gene editing is almost exclusively used on major crops such as corn. Researchers are developing accessible gene editing technology that also allows faster plant growth.