New Computer Model Developed to Breed Crops that Produce More Using Less Water

University of Illinois Professors Praveen Kumar and Stephen Long have developed a computer modelling system to help plant scientists breed soybean crops that produce more and use less water. The model predicts a design for a soybean crop with 8.5 percent more productivity, but using 13 percent less water, and reflecting 34 percent more radiation back into space, by breeding for slightly different leaf distribution, angles and reflectivity.

The researchers aimed for three specific areas for improvements: productivity, water usage, and combating climate change by reflecting more sunlight off the leaves. They used a technique called numerical optimization to try out a very large number of combinations of structural traits to see which combination produced the best results with respect to each of the three goals. Their next plan is to use their computer model to analyze other crops for their structural traits.

For more information about this research, read the news release at: http://news.illinois.edu/news/14/0403soybean_crops_PraveenKumar_StephenLong.html.