Lundquist, Per-Olof
- Department of Plant Biology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Research article2023Peer reviewedOpen access
DeHaan, Lee R.; Anderson, James A.; Bajgain, Prabin; Basche, Andrea; Cattani, Douglas J.; Crain, Jared; Crews, Timothy E.; David, Christophe; Duchene, Olivier; Gutknecht, Jessica; Hayes, Richard C.; Hu, Fengyi; Jungers, Jacob M.; Knudsen, Soren; Kong, Wenqian; Larson, Steve; Lundquist, Per-Olof; Luo, Guangbin; Miller, Allison J.; Nabukalu, Pheonah;
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Perennial grains have potential to contribute to ecological intensification of food production by enabling the direct har-vest of human-edible crops without requiring annual cycles of disturbance and replanting. Studies of prototype peren-nial grains and other herbaceous perennials point to the ability of agroecosystems including these crops to protect water quality, enhance wildlife habitat, build soil quality, and sequester soil carbon. However, genetic improvement of perennial grain candidates has been hindered by limited investment due to uncertainty about whether the approach is viable. As efforts to develop perennial grain crops have expanded in past decades, critiques of the approach have arisen. With a recent report of perennial rice producing yields equivalent to those of annual rice over eight consecutive harvests, many theoretical concerns have been alleviated. Some valid questions remain over the timeline for new crop development, but we argue these may be mitigated by implementation of recent technological advances in crop breed-ing and genetics such as low-cost genotyping, genomic selection, and genome editing. With aggressive research invest-ment in the development of new perennial grain crops, they can be developed and deployed to provide atmospheric greenhouse gas reductions.
Soil quality; Climate change; Carbon sequestration; Genome editing; Intermediate wheatgrass; Genomic selection
Science of the Total Environment
2023, Volume: 895, article number: 164975Publisher: ELSEVIER
SDG2 Zero hunger
SDG12 Responsible consumption and production
SDG15 Life on land
Environmental Sciences related to Agriculture and Land-use
Agricultural Science
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.164975
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/123457