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A peach of a genome with breeding lessons for biofuels crops

Several plants sequenced by the DOE Joint Genome Institute have been considered “flagship” genomes due to their importance to DOE mission and plant science. Among these plants are poplar, the first tree sequenced and a candidate bioenergy feedstock, and soybean, the primary source of biodiesel in the United States. Other plant genomes are important for… [Read More]

Foxtail Millet Genome an Improved Reference for Switchgrass

The DOE is interested in switchgrass as a prospective biofuels feedstock, but its genome is complicated because it has multiple copies of its chromosomes. As the world leader in sequencing plants and other organisms for their relevance to DOE missions, the JGI has sequenced switchgrass and several other plants that are candidate plant feedstocks; other… [Read More]

Foxtail millet project in GenomeWeb Daily News

From Genomics in the Journals: “Bennetzen and colleagues from the University of Georgia, the HudsonAlpha Institute, the Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute, and elsewhere used Sanger sequencing complemented by high-throughput sequencing methods to generate a high-quality, 400 million base reference genome for foxtail millet. “ Read more at GenomeWeb Daily News [Read More]

Foxtail millet project in Biofuels Digest

In an attempt to piece together the switchgrass genome, the DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI) in an international partnership with includes the DOE BioEnergy Science Center (BESC) and the DOE Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) has sequenced plant genomes of related candidate bioenergy crops such as sorghum and the model grass Brachypodium but may have found the missing… [Read More]

Foxtail millet genome project in AgProfessional

One of the challenges in studying grasses for bioenergy applications is that they typically have long lifecycles and complex genomes. Jeremy Schmutz, head of the DOE JGI Plant Program at the HudsonAlpha Institute of Biotechnology, pointed out that foxtail millet has several advantages as a model. It’s a compact genome roughly half a billion bases… [Read More]

An alternative surrogate for gene discovery in switchgrass

Selected for the DOE JGI 2007 Community Sequencing Program because of traits such as high yield, perennial growth and low nutrient requirements, switchgrass is a promising candidate bioenergy crop that could be used to develop cellulosic biofuels. One of the challenges with sequencing switchgrass is the fact that it is a polyploid, containing multiple, full… [Read More]

Danforth Center highlights plant projects for CSP 2012

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI) has selected two projects from a highly competitive pool of applications, submitted by Danforth Plant Science Center Principal Investigators, Dr. Thomas Brutnell and Dr. Todd Mockler as part of its 2012 Community Sequencing Program (CSP). Read more at the Danforth Center News site. [Read More]

Director Rubin on corngrass1 for biofuel

Up to now, the fast-growing switchgrass, because of its tough lignin, an organic polymer, has required heavy chemical treatment before it can be turned to ethanol as biofuel. Chuck’s gene transfer experiments have shown that because the improved switchgrass keeps the plants young, the lignin content of their cells is minimal and would need no… [Read More]

Cow rumen metagenome study in EarthSky

Enter: the cow. If cows are good at anything, it’s digesting plant material until it turns into sugar; Dr. Rubin noted that cows have been eating grass for a few million years. That’s why Rubin’s team decided to do major genetic analysis of microbes inside the stomachs of cows. He explained that he was interested… [Read More]

Cow rumen metagenome study on BBC World Service: Science in Action

Growing crops to make bio-fuel is controversial – they can take up valuable land and resources that could be used for food production and in the case of oil palms, large tracts of rainforest have been cleared to make way for this cash crop. But the second generation of bio-fuels hope to make use of… [Read More]