Abstract
Increases in agricultural productivity are necessary to meet anticipated demands, and these increases must occur in an environmentally sustainable fashion. However, it has become measurably harder to generate ideas and new approaches that result in real gains. The maize Genomes to Fields (G2F) Initiative seeks to bring together researchers across diverse disciplines to create situations that generate new ideas for research, development, and education. Contact from those interested to learn more about G2F is invited, and inquiries on how to initiate and support research and training at scale are welcome.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1406-1410 |
| Number of pages | 5 |
| Journal | Crop Science |
| Volume | 59 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jul 1 2019 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Together, these five recommendations make it clear that novel training programs that aim to develop skills and expertise in idea generation, data management and analysis, and collaborative capacity are sorely needed. Examples of programs doing exactly that are beginning to appear, with significant funding provided by the National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) Program. At Iowa State University, the Predictive Plant Phenomics (P3) NRT combines expertise in plant sciences, engineering, and data sciences with skills in collaboration and entrepreneurship to support the development of a new type of researcher equipped to work across disciplines and institution types (https://www.predictivephenomicsinplants. iastate.edu; Lawrence-Dill et al., 2018a). This program is in its fourth year. At Michigan State University, the Integrated Training PrograM in Plant And CompuTational Sciences (IMPACTS) NRT aims to train students in computational plant sciences focused on tackling multis-calar research problems, from molecular to ecosystem levels (https://natsci.msu.edu/news/msu-nets-3m-nsf-grant-for-stem-graduate-education). The IMPACTS program is in its first year. These and other novel training concepts promise to expand how the next generation of plant scientists approaches hard problems to generate and test new ideas in support of increased crop productivity with minimal environmental impact and to represent excellent programs for educational partnerships with the G2F Initiative.
Funding Information:
Funding for this project was provided by the USDA-NIFA, Food and Agriculture Cyberinformatics and Tools (FACT) program via Grant no. 2017-07799 to P.S. Schnable with additional support provided by Iowa state University’s Plant Sciences Institute. Recommendations reviewed here derive from the efforts of many researchers involved in the G2F project as well as those who contributed to the 2018 NIFA FACT Workshop whitepaper (Lawrence-Dill et al., 2018b).
Funding Information:
Funding for this project was provided by the USDA-NIFA, Food and Agriculture Cyberinformatics and Tools (FACT) program via Grant no. 2017-07799 to P.S. Schnable with additional support provided by Iowa State University’s Plant Sciences Institute. Recommendations reviewed here derive from the efforts of many researchers involved in the G2F project as well as those who contributed to the 2018 NIFA FACT Workshop whitepaper (Lawrence-Dill et al., 2018b).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 The Author(s).
