There’s nothing quite like a pandemic to shake up the best laid research plans.

In late 2018, researchers at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, in collaboration with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) were awarded a $3.9 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study nitrogen efficiency in sorghum.

Sorghum is a grain with many uses. It’s highly prevalent in the South and used as an inexpensive sweetener, sorghum molasses. It is also used for livestock feed and ethanol production.

The research team had been evaluating sorghum to pinpoint the genes and regulatory networks that play a role in nitrogen uptake efficiency. Synthetic nitrogen fertilizers can be both energy intensive and costly. What’s more, fertilizer runoff negatively impacts the environment. Cultivating nitrogen efficient plants would reduce the need for synthetic fertilizer.

The project was initially designed to promote student involvement in various stages of the research, with the overarching goal of training the next generation of scientists in the field of Agrigenomics.

However, COVID-19 was a game changer, bringing research activities to a halt. As a result, many of the student-oriented learning opportunities were temporarily put on hold.

To reboot the sorghum research efforts, the HudsonAlpha-UNL team was recently awarded a supplemental grant. Part of the grant involves the research of several sorghum varieties that will be planted in Nebraska and Alabama. The grant also includes the reinvigoration of the educational component.

When it came to mindful diversity and extending valuable learning opportunities to students, Alabama A&M University (AAMU) was an ideal match for collaborating on the sorghum research project.

By bringing on Alabama A&M University (AAMU) as a third partner, it is anticipated that both the research and educational goals will be successfully reached. The team plans to place an emphasis on minority students who are often under-represented in STEM fields, particularly in the agricultural sciences.

“Alabama A&M is excited to be a part of this NSF-funded project,” says Ernie Cebert, PhD, director of the Winifred Thomas Agricultural Research Station at AAMU where the sorghum will be grown. “In addition to playing a part in such a scientifically and environmentally impactful project, it is also important to us that we will be contributing to the training of the future biosciences workforce.”

The two-year supplement will mentor and cross train young researchers at AAMU, a public, historically black, land-grant university. The team hopes to help significantly increase the retention of young scientists in agriscience and broaden participation of minorities in agriscience.

“Our supplemental grant aims to address the practical limitations of our first grant by scaling up the number of sorghum genotypes that we study and growing the sorghum in the field,” says Jeremy Schmutz. “At HudsonAlpha we have had a successful relationship with Dr. Ernie Cebert and his team at Alabama A&M University for many years, so it only made sense to bring them on as a third partner for this project to run field tests in Alabama.”