Making crops more adaptable to changing climates

At the Texas A&M AgriLife Research, College Station, associate research scientist, Meiping Zhang is studying the adaptability of cowpeas (black-eyed peas) to certain stresses.

With a $500,000 grant from the National Institute for Food and Agriculture, Dr Zhang and a team of scientists, will be using DNA sequencing technology to map and clone the genes that provide this legume tolerance to heat and drought, with the intent to deploy these genes in other crops. Available varieties of cowpeas are quite tough, being resistant to aphids, tolerant to heat, drought and low phosphorus, and they can mature within 60 to 70 days. Some of their traits can benefit other crop species.

The new research aims to develop single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) markers that enable manipulation of genes that control heat and drought tolerances in cowpeas and related species. SNP markers are the most sophisticated DNA marker technology available.

Once the genes have been defined and cloned, scientists will be able to learn from a molecular basis what causes the plant’s tolerances particularly to heat and drought. The knowledge would help them develop tools that will allow them to combine plant traits in new cultivars, in an attempt to make these more adaptable to changing climates.

Joining Dr Zhang on this project are Dr Hongbin Zhang, Texas A&M professor of plant genomics and systems biology and director of the Laboratory for Plant Genomics and Molecular Genetics; Dr B.B. Singh, a visiting scholar and cowpea breeder with the Texas A&M soil and crop sciences department; and Dr Dirk Hays, Texas A&M associate professor of physiological and molecular genetics, all in College Station.