Decoding Crop Genetics With Artificial Intelligence

East Lansing, MI (July 13, 2021) - We live in a time when it's never been easier or less expensive to sequence a plant's complete genome. But knowing all of a plant's genes is not the same thing as knowing what all those genes do. Michigan State experts in plant biology and computer science plan to close that gap with the help of artificial intelligence and a new $1.4 million grant from the National Science Foundation. Ultimately, the goal is to help farmers grow crops with genes that give their plants the best chance to withstand threats such as drought and disease. To get to that point, though, researchers still need to reveal the fundamental role of many of the genes found in plants.