The Plant Biology Innovation Greenhouse (PBIG), designed to support research at the Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation (CABBI), is now open at the University of Illinois Research Park.
The greenhouse is a part of CABBI’s broader mission to generate the knowledge and tools to develop an ecologically and economically sustainable bioeconomy based on highly productive, high-value biomass crops. The new facility celebrated its grand opening Nov. 15, and research is already in full swing.
“Being able to test crops under the controlled conditions of the greenhouse first allows us to better understand how they might perform in the field so that we can screen through a lot of the different material that we’re generating before we invest in the field trials,” said Wendy Yang, U of I professor of plant biology and geology and CABBI’s sustainability theme leader.
Inside the PBIG, CABBI researchers are monitoring the real-time growth and water use of bioenergy crops — sorghum, sugarcane and miscanthus. The research team wants to know how to increase the water efficiency of crops to help them thrive even during drought.
Yang leads the stable isotope labeling facility based inside the growth chambers of the PBIG headhouse. Researchers can track plant compounds being released into the soil from plant roots.
“Just a single teaspoon of soil has over 10,000 different species of microbes in it and most microbes in soil aren’t active at any given moment in time,” Yang said. “So, when we’re trying to understand plant-microbe interactions that can benefit crop productivity and resilience, it’s really hard for us to tell which microbes are playing a role in those interactions.”
She told FarmWeek that being able to track the 13C stable isotope of carbon from the plant into the microbes helps them see which microbes are taking up plant carbon. Understanding this interaction also helps researchers figure out which microbes can help plants deal with stress.
Once researchers identify how plants interact with the microbes, they can work with CABBI Feedstock Production researchers to improve crops and enhance those beneficial interactions. Yang added that these interactions are also not specific to individual crop species, so what they learn from studying sorghum, sugarcane and miscanthus can be translated to other cropping systems like corn and soybeans.
“We see that there can be a future where the bioenergy crop landscape can coexist with our current agricultural landscape,” she said.
The greenhouse project was led by the U of I Provost’s Office, Department of Plant Biology, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, School of Integrative Biology and Department of Crop Sciences.
The project was supported by the Department of Energy through funding of CABBI. Benefits will extend throughout the university, with research and teaching opportunities for faculty and students across three colleges.