In our warming world, we’ll need corn, sorghum and other crops to grow well in worse conditions: with more heat, less water and less fertilizer. Grasses do better in these conditions, so plant biologists James Schable, Guangchao Sun and Vladimir Torrres have looked into traits that could transfer from grasses into other crops. 

One grass they studied just happened to be the same species that covered World Cup pitches in 2022.

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• Publication: Sun, G., Wase, N., Shu, S. et al. Genome of Paspalum vaginatum and the role of trehalose mediated autophagy in increasing maize biomass. Nat Commun 13, 7731 (2022). doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-35507-8
• Phytozome: Paspalum vaginatum data

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