UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A research team led by a Penn State plant scientist has received a $650,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture to study the functions of key plant genes responsible for regulating the acquisition and use of nitrogen and phosphorus in corn hybrids.
Ruairidh Sawers, assistant professor of plant abiotic stress, and colleagues in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences will collaborate with the research group of Stephen Moose, a crop scientist at the University of Illinois, to learn why some corn varieties are better at acquiring and using nitrogen and phosphorus than others.