Green foxtail (Daniel Waxler, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center)
“Our results show that healthy growth can be achieved by combining certain soil bacteria with grasses, even when plants are grown in extremely nitrogen-deprived soil,” said study coauthor Richard Ferrieri, director of Brookhaven Lab’s Radiochemistry and Biological Imaging Program. “We plan to apply this method to other crop systems, including bioenergy grasses like sorghum, switchgrass, and miscanthus, and even to food crops like corn and wheat.”
We sequenced the grass Setaria viridis (green foxtail), and its relative S. italica (foxtail millet) under our Community Science Program. using S. viridis, an international consortium of researchers, including scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory, tracked nitrogen as soil bacteria pull it from the air and release it ina plant-friendly form to boost growth in certain grass crops. Read the full story here.