{"id":2186,"date":"2019-06-12T17:27:15","date_gmt":"2019-06-12T09:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.agrinoon.com\/agriculture\/?p=2186"},"modified":"2019-06-12T17:27:15","modified_gmt":"2019-06-12T09:27:15","slug":"crop-scientists-looking-ways-beat-heat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.agrinoon.com\/agriculture\/2019\/06\/12\/crop-scientists-looking-ways-beat-heat\/","title":{"rendered":"Crop scientists looking for ways to beat the heat"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Can a small circuit board, barely the size of a credit card, help the world\u2019s wheat to beat the heat?<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Kansas State University researchers think so, and they say that they\u2019ve built the world\u2019s first facility to help them prove it.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>In a lush field north of the university\u2019s Manhattan campus, the scientists are testing more than 300 wheat cultivars under heat-controlled tents to show that high nighttime temperatures are robbing the nation\u2019s wheat growers of both the quantity and quality of their crop.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cA small computer, called a\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"https:\/\/opensource.com\/resources\/raspberry-pi\">Raspberry Pi<\/a>, is used to monitor temperature and adjust conditions inside the tents so that the researchers can determine the cultivars that are less \u2013 and more \u2013 susceptible to high temperatures,\u201d said Dan Wagner, a graduate student in computer science who built the system.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u201cThis is not just the wheat grown in Kansas,\u201d said crop physiologist Krishna Jagadish, an associate professor of agronomy. \u201cThese lines represent the entire U.S. hard red winter wheat collection.\u201d<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Jagadish walks among eight sections of wheat, each split into 40 rows containing one wheat cultivar. It adds up to 320 wheat cultivars, many of the hard red winter wheat or their offshoots that are grown somewhere in the country.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The researchers have built six such tents, each growing the same 320 cultivars but held under different environmental conditions. There is no facility like this in the world, Jagadish said, noting that the project will provide researchers with precious data to help them generate newer wheat varieties with tolerance to heat.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u201cWe will be harvesting each of the cultivars through the end of June,\u201d said Raju Bheemanahalli, a post-doctoral fellow in K-State\u2019s Department of Agronomy. \u201cThen we will analyze the size and number of grains, protein content and more. From that, we will identify the genomic regions that will help in developing markers controlling heat tolerance.\u201d<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Eventually, he said, those markers can be used by wheat breeders to develop varieties that yield well even under more intense heat.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Regardless of where it\u2019s grown, all wheat is susceptible to heat, and researchers now believe that high nighttime temperatures can be equally damaging as high daytime temperatures.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><strong>Controlling the test environment<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The tents that K-State has built are designed to expose wheat to typical field conditions while comparing it closely to wheat grown under more controlled conditions.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u201cWe have three control tents in which we don\u2019t roll the side walls and end walls down so that we let fresh air in,\u201d said Nathan Hein, an assistant scientist in K-State\u2019s Department of Agronomy. \u201cAnd then we have three heated tents that we completely shut down overnight.\u201d<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The heated tents are kept at a temperature 4 degrees Celsius above the outdoor temperature. Six sensors inside each tent are strategically located to make sure the temperature is held uniformly across the 320 wheat cultivars.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u201cThe Pi (computer) operates like a thermostat in your house,\u201d Hein said. \u201cOnce the temperature drops too low, it flips the relay and turns the heater on. When the tent\u2019s temperature is 4 degrees Celsius above the outside temperature, then the Pi shuts the heaters down.\u201d<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Jagadish said that causing stress uniformly to the cultivars in a common setting provides valuable clues to which ones will perform better in actual field conditions.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u201cWe may find that specific lines coming from a region are more susceptible to heat, and that the quality of the wheat gets even worse as nighttime temperatures increase,\u201d he said.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The researchers have been studying the effect of nighttime temperatures for more than a year, first in a smaller pilot project and now in a more expanded, fully operational facility. Jagadish said it\u2019s clear that high nighttime temperatures cause a deterioration in the wheat crop; the key is to minimize the damage.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u201cWhen exposed to high nighttime temperatures during grain filling, the grain weight, yield and starch content goes down, and the protein content increases,\u201d Jagadish said.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u201cThat changes the dynamics of what is required for maintaining the quality of bread, including the elasticity, and qualities like that. High level of protein with increasing nighttime temperature will make the bread crusty, which means that you may not get the loaf of bread as you really like it.\u201d<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><strong>Research has beer implications too<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Jagadish said that much of Kansas State\u2019s work in the past has been directed toward ensuring quality bread wheat, but his team\u2019s current study also has some implications for another growing industry \u2013 craft beer.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Brewers prefer grains that are plump, but high nighttime temperatures tend to shrink the size of the grain. Jagadish said there are indications that smaller wheat grains will not only affect the quantity of beer but also the quality.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>In addition, the concept of using tents to test heat stress on wheat can be applied to other farm crops, notably corn and sorghum. \u201cThis facility can be used for any crop,\u201d Jagadish said. \u201cThat\u2019s how it\u2019s built.\u201d<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>K-State\u2019s work is funded for two more years by the National Science Foundation through its Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research program, known as EPSCoR. K-State is working on the study in partnership with the University of Nebraska and Arkansas State University, which currently is looking to build its own heat tents.<\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"tl clearfix mt10\">\n<h4 class=\"p-source c-999 cb pt5\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Source<\/strong>:\u00a0<a class=\"c-orange fs16\" style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"http:\/\/news.agropages.com\/Media\/MediaIndex-730.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kansas State University news release<\/a><\/span><\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Can a small circuit board, barely the size of a credit card, help the world\u2019s wheat to beat the heat? Kansas State University researchers think so, and they say that they\u2019ve built the world\u2019s first facility to help them prove it. In a lush field north of the university\u2019s Manhattan campus, the scientists are testing&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.agrinoon.com\/agriculture\/2019\/06\/12\/crop-scientists-looking-ways-beat-heat\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Crop scientists looking for ways to beat the heat<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-industry-news","entry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Crop scientists looking for ways to beat the heat - agrinoon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.agrinoon.com\/agriculture\/2019\/06\/12\/crop-scientists-looking-ways-beat-heat\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Crop scientists looking for ways to beat the heat - agrinoon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Can a small circuit board, barely the size of a credit card, help the world\u2019s wheat to beat the heat? 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