Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York, USA
May 9, 2022

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) have created a website called SorghumBase that serves as the first centralized hub for sorghum crop research. The hub, open to anyone, pools together existing and emerging genetic, genomic, and breeding data and resources worldwide to facilitate crop improvement efforts. Doreen Ware, a CSHL adjunct professor, USDA research scientist, and her team led the project, funded by the USDA and published in the journal Planta earlier this year.

Sorghum is the fifth most important crop globally in terms of acreage and production. While primarily used as feed and fodder for livestock, it also finds use in the food and biofuel industries. The crop’s many attractive traits include strong tolerance to drought, heat, low nutrients, and high salt conditions. This makes it a promising crop in agricultural research addressing mounting challenges like climate change and feeding a growing world population.

SorghumBase provides plant breeders, agronomists, and plant biologists a place to share information and discoveries related to key crop traits such as yield, nutrient use efficiency, disease resistance, and plant development. The website also features several educational videos to help navigate new users through its tools and resources. A blog keeps the community up to date on the latest sorghum news.

Website: http://www.cshl.edu

Published: May 11, 2022