Research topics covered by this initiative include solutions that:
- Quantify the specific features of climate-driven temperature change that impact crop plants. Approaches may include development or improvement of biophysical crop simulation/predictive models;
- Address higher temperatures in day and/or night periods;
- Address increased temperature variability;
- Could be applied in crop genetic improvement programs;
- Address the challenges of phenotyping for variation in thermotolerance, including the impact of acclimation;
- Address temperature response in crop plants, including molecular, enzymatic, physiological and/or genetic approaches;
- Develop solutions in model plant systems that can be applied to one or more of the specified crops;
- Apply to agricultural systems in low-income countries.
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About the Increasing Climate Resilience in Crops Program
Scientists predict that climate change will lead to higher temperatures, as well as greater temperature variability. These changes can dramatically affect agriculture systems, decreasing crop productivity, harming farmers’ livelihoods and threatening global food security.
The future of food production depends on crops’ abilities to thrive despite higher global temperatures and other environmental stresses.
Our Increasing Climate Resilience in Crops Program, co-funded with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is a competitive research program to develop the critical solutions necessary to enhance the sustainable production of nutritious food. The research funded will enhance the climate resiliency of plants in a profitable and sustainable manner.
This funding opportunity aims to specifically increase heat tolerance in one or more of the following crop species: banana, cassava, chickpea, common bean, cowpea, groundnut, maize, millet, rice, sweet potato, sorghum, wheat and yam. The funded research will increase the basal or acquired thermotolerance in the crop species mentioned above. This funding opportunity aims to generate solutions that can be applied in low-income countries.
