<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><item href="/news/fields-of-breeders-dreams-a-team-effort-toward-targeted-crop-improvements.aspx" dsn="blogs"><homehero/><unit>Faculty &amp; Staff,Research,College of Natural Science,Plant Biology</unit><pubDate>02/01/2021</pubDate><title>Fields of breeders' dreams: A team effort toward targeted crop improvements</title><description><p>MSU plant biologist David Lowry is part of a study that examines the use of switchgrass in fighting climate change to improve crop growth. As reported in a recent issue of <em>Nature</em>, the team has produced a high-quality reference sequence of the complex switchgrass genome, and is exploring improvements to switchgrass through more targeted genome editing and customization of the crop for additional end products.</p>
<p> </p></description><author/><hero-image><img src="https://natsci.msu.edu/sites/_natsci/cache/file/8D2EB6EA-1B0E-4016-A4B8D7E05BF22496_newsarticlehero.jpg" alt="Hero image"/></hero-image><image><img src="https://natsci.msu.edu/sites/_natsci/cache/file/8D2EB6EA-1B0E-4016-A4B8D7E05BF22496_medium.jpg" alt="Hero image"/></image><tags><tag>climate change</tag><tag>collaboration</tag><tag>crop growth improvement</tag><tag>faculty</tag><tag>research</tag><tag>switchgrass</tag></tags></item>