University of Maryland scores $2.6M DOE grant to investigate poplar traits

In Maryland, University of Maryland researcher was awarded $2.6 million by the U.S. Department of Energy to investigate the genetics underlying how poplar trees sense nutrients and regulate their metabolism—information that could help farmers maximize yields of this and other plants used in biofuel production.

Dedicated biomass crops like poplar, switchgrass, miscanthus and bamboo are grown on marginal lands that are not well suited to traditional crops like corn and wheat. It pays to understand how crops grown in such conditions use the nutrients available, how they metabolize and grow tissue, and how they respond to stressful conditions like drought.

The research is looking at the genes that encode for the TOR protein, one of the central components of the TOR complex. Its job is to receive signals from the molecules that sense a wide range of nutrients like carbon and nitrogen, and then relay that information to the cellular machinery that activates growth and inhibits cell death.