Improving poplar biomass production under stress conditions

In California, researchers at UC Davis are stressing out poplar plants on purpose by elevating temperatures, lowering water access and seeing how they can redesign poplar to withstand the added stresses. Poplar provides a fast-growing woody feedstock for biofuels and the rising frequency of these stressful periods inspires a race to find more tolerant plants. The collaborative group of researchers is redesigning poplar, a bioenergy crop, based on its specific genome in just a few years. The field study is still a couple years away, because the project is now only nearing the end of its first year.

“We are bringing together cell biologists, molecular biologists, physiologists and a national lab in a common effort,” says plant biologist Eduardo Blumwald, the lead principal investigator and a distinguished professor of cell biology at UC Davis. “This is a multi-disciplinary approach, and I think that this is the most important element.”