Thursday, February 25, 2021
  • Setup menu at Appearance » Menus and assign menu to Top Bar Navigation
Advertisement
  • AI Development
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Machine Learning
    • Neural Networks
    • Learn to Code
  • Data
    • Blockchain
    • Big Data
    • Data Science
  • IT Security
    • Internet Privacy
    • Internet Security
  • Marketing
    • Digital Marketing
    • Marketing Technology
  • Technology Companies
  • Crypto News
No Result
View All Result
NikolaNews
  • AI Development
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Machine Learning
    • Neural Networks
    • Learn to Code
  • Data
    • Blockchain
    • Big Data
    • Data Science
  • IT Security
    • Internet Privacy
    • Internet Security
  • Marketing
    • Digital Marketing
    • Marketing Technology
  • Technology Companies
  • Crypto News
No Result
View All Result
NikolaNews
No Result
View All Result
Home Machine Learning

Nebraska team merges machine learning, plant genetics to maximize sorghum potential | Local News

August 25, 2019
in Machine Learning
Nebraska team merges machine learning, plant genetics to maximize sorghum potential | Local News
585
SHARES
3.3k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

LINCOLN — Through a $2.7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, a University of Nebraska–Lincoln research team is developing ways to maximize sorghum potentials across the United States.

You might also like

Zorroa Launches Boon AI; No-code Machine Learning for Media-driven Organizations

Way of using machine learning to aid mental health diagnoses developed

Machine Learning Market Size 2021

Sorghum, the third most abundant cereal crop in the United States, is emerging as a star player in the biofuels industry. With its water use efficiency, resistance to heat and low cost of seed, it has the capacity to outpace corn, especially in the West and High Plans where irrigation supply limits agricultural productivity more than land availability.

Right now, however, maximizing the crop’s potential is challenging. The function of much of its genome – its complete set of DNA – remains a mystery. Without pinpointing the function of more of sorghum’s roughly 30,000 genes, researchers can’t fully optimize sorghum for biofuel production.

That’s the problem a group of University of Nebraska-Lincoln researchers, led by plant geneticist James Schnable, has set out to address. The team recently earned a $2.7 million, three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a rapid, efficient method for characterizing the functions of genes in sorghum.

The Nebraska scientists are leading a team of institutions from across the Corn Belt — including Iowa State University, Michigan State University, Purdue University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign — in this effort.

Their approach, an innovative merger of machine learning and plant genetics, will pave the way for sorghum strains designed to thrive in specific environments. The method could also extend to other crops like corn and soybeans, the vast majority of whose genes are unstudied.

“If we understand the details about how plants perceive and react to their environments, we can develop varieties specialized to certain parts of the U.S.,” said Schnable, associate professor of agronomy and horticulture. “Right now, for many genes, we have no idea what they do.”

To begin to fill these gaps, Schnable’s team is using a method known as reverse genetics. It’s essentially a rewind of the traditional approach, called forward genetics, where the starting point is a plant with an unusual appearance, or phenotype. Researchers find the odd-looking plant, then try to determine which genes are responsible.

With reverse genetics, the process moves the other direction. Scientists start with a known gene, alter that specific gene, then analyze the characteristics of the resulting plant, shedding light on the gene’s function. Though the approach has been used for more than a decade, in most cases, altering the gene has no effect. Identifying the right genes to study is like digging for a needle in a haystack.

To overcome this, Schnable’s team is devising a systematic method for selecting which genes it makes sense to investigate. It centers on machine learning — the process of teaching computers to make decisions by exposing them to mountains of previously collected data. For this project, the researchers will feed the machine extensive information about sorghum and corn genes that already have been studied in depth.

From this data, the computer will learn to recognize patterns indicating a certain type of gene likely plays an outsize role in determining sorghum’s characteristics. Once refined, the algorithm will spare researchers the cumbersome process of randomly picking a gene, mutating it and coming up empty-handed.

By measuring the water use of plants on an hourly or even minute-by-minute basis, Nebraska’s James Schnable and colleagues hope to better understand and eventually improve how crops respond to drought.

Along with researching sorghum, Schnable also is developing a stalk-worn sensor for corn that will help his team better understand and eventually improve how it responds to drought.

“People in the lab have found that when a gene does yield something weird in the plant, these genes look really different from others in the genome,” Schnable said. “We’re going to use this information to train computers to identify other genes likely to have big effects on plants when they’re mutated.”

After the system identifies promising genes, Schnable’s team will edit them and measure the resulting sorghum for traits like stress response, nutrient and water use efficiency, and biomass – the amount of organic material available to produce renewable energy.

To this point, much research has focused on identifying crop varieties that perform well across large parts of the country, from eastern Nebraska to central Illinois, for example. But with a deeper understanding of how sorghum’s genes function, the focus can shift to developing breeds that flourish in smaller geographical pockets with fewer inputs. This strategy could boost overall sorghum production for fuel, food and animal feed.

The project is among the first to marry artificial intelligence and plant science, a combination that started gaining momentum over the past 18 months, Schnable said. He expects the method to open new doors in plant genetics.

“There is so much potential when you start communicating between two different academic silos that haven’t been talking to each other before,” he said.

The interdisciplinary approach is reflected in the team’s composition. The Nebraska group also includes Yufeng Ge, associate professor of biological systems engineering, and Brandi Sigmon, assistant professor of practice in plant pathology. Researchers from other universities include statisticians, engineers and geographers.

The project is funded by DOE’s Genomics-enabled Plant Biology for Determination of Gene Function program.


Credit: Google News

Previous Post

Overstock Will Champion Crypto Despite Cheerleader Byrne's Exit

Next Post

Stock Market Forecast: Will Trump Declare Another National Emergency?

Related Posts

Zorroa Launches Boon AI; No-code Machine Learning for Media-driven Organizations
Machine Learning

Zorroa Launches Boon AI; No-code Machine Learning for Media-driven Organizations

February 24, 2021
Machine Learning

Way of using machine learning to aid mental health diagnoses developed

February 24, 2021
Machine Learning Market Size 2021
Machine Learning

Machine Learning Market Size 2021

February 24, 2021
Market Live: Global Machine Learning Big Data Analytics Education Market Can Deliver up to High CAGR over the next Few Years | COVID19 Impact Analysis
Machine Learning

Global Machine Learning Market 2021 Size, Industry Growth and Forecast till 2025 | COVID19 Impact Analysis

February 24, 2021
Machine learning aids in simulating dynamics of interacting atoms
Machine Learning

Machine learning aids in simulating dynamics of interacting atoms

February 24, 2021
Next Post
Stock Market Forecast: Will Trump Declare Another National Emergency?

Stock Market Forecast: Will Trump Declare Another National Emergency?

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recommended

Plasticity in Deep Learning: Dynamic Adaptations for AI Self-Driving Cars

Plasticity in Deep Learning: Dynamic Adaptations for AI Self-Driving Cars

January 6, 2019
Microsoft, Google Use Artificial Intelligence to Fight Hackers

Microsoft, Google Use Artificial Intelligence to Fight Hackers

January 6, 2019

Categories

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Big Data
  • Blockchain
  • Crypto News
  • Data Science
  • Digital Marketing
  • Internet Privacy
  • Internet Security
  • Learn to Code
  • Machine Learning
  • Marketing Technology
  • Neural Networks
  • Technology Companies

Don't miss it

Want to pass on your old PCs to good causes? Here’s how to do it while staying secure
Internet Security

Want to pass on your old PCs to good causes? Here’s how to do it while staying secure

February 24, 2021
Experts Warns of Notable Increase in QuickBooks Data Files Theft Attacks
Internet Privacy

Experts Warns of Notable Increase in QuickBooks Data Files Theft Attacks

February 24, 2021
Cutting-edge Katana Graph scores $28.5 million Series A Led by Intel Capital
Big Data

Cutting-edge Katana Graph scores $28.5 million Series A Led by Intel Capital

February 24, 2021
Assessing the rise of DeFi – and how data will drive fintech in 2021
Blockchain

Assessing the rise of DeFi – and how data will drive fintech in 2021

February 24, 2021
Zorroa Launches Boon AI; No-code Machine Learning for Media-driven Organizations
Machine Learning

Zorroa Launches Boon AI; No-code Machine Learning for Media-driven Organizations

February 24, 2021
Red Hat closes StackRox Kubernetes security acquisition
Internet Security

Red Hat closes StackRox Kubernetes security acquisition

February 24, 2021
NikolaNews

NikolaNews.com is an online News Portal which aims to share news about blockchain, AI, Big Data, and Data Privacy and more!

What’s New Here?

  • Want to pass on your old PCs to good causes? Here’s how to do it while staying secure February 24, 2021
  • Experts Warns of Notable Increase in QuickBooks Data Files Theft Attacks February 24, 2021
  • Cutting-edge Katana Graph scores $28.5 million Series A Led by Intel Capital February 24, 2021
  • Assessing the rise of DeFi – and how data will drive fintech in 2021 February 24, 2021

Subscribe to get more!

© 2019 NikolaNews.com - Global Tech Updates

No Result
View All Result
  • AI Development
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Machine Learning
    • Neural Networks
    • Learn to Code
  • Data
    • Blockchain
    • Big Data
    • Data Science
  • IT Security
    • Internet Privacy
    • Internet Security
  • Marketing
    • Digital Marketing
    • Marketing Technology
  • Technology Companies
  • Crypto News

© 2019 NikolaNews.com - Global Tech Updates