The genetics of economically important crops, including rice, soy and Brassica, will be studied under NSF's Plant Genome Research Program (PGRP). In 2010--the program's 13th year--NSF made 28 new awards totaling $101.9 million to support research and tool development to further knowledge of genome structure and function. The work will leverage sequence and functional genomics resources to advance understanding of gene function and interactions between genomes and the environment in economically important crop plants such as corn, cotton, rice, soybean, tomato and wheat. To learn more about this research and the Plant Genome Research Program, see the NSF news release.

Credit: Nicolle Rager Fuller (rice), Zina Deretsky (soy and Brassica), National Science Foundation