Researchers hope to speed up gene editing in crops at a new greenhouse being built at the University of Illinois Research Park. They could eventually grow corn in the 9,000-square-foot facility, which will have 14-foot walls.
"What we want to install in there is the state-of-the-art equipment to be able to quantify the way in which the plants grow and determine yield parameters, and then relate that to genomic information and differences in the plants," said Donald Ort, the deputy director of the Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency, or RIPE, project.
The project's mission: to feed a growing world population by improving photosynthesis in crops through gene editing.