The following is an excerpt.
Plant scientists long have known they can alter crops genetically to improve performance; they’ve been doing it thousands of years.
But what if they could dramatically improve crops by leaving the genes themselves unchanged but instead change how they’re expressed in a way that would be passed down to future generations?
That question is at the heart of research at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Center for Plant Science Innovation, and the results so far are encouraging. The findings, expected to be commercialized in the next couple of years, could play a role in helping meet the world’s dramatically increasing need for food, said Sally Mackenzie, Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources plant scientist.
Read the full article here: Plant scientists hope to use epigenetics to improve crops
