Drought-Resistant Bioenergy Crops Can Be Grown Where Food Cannot

The WATBIO project has made important steps towards improving the production of drought-resistant biomass crops intended for conditions not suitable for food crops. This solution goes to the heart of a key challenge for European and indeed global agriculture: ensuring that biomass crops neither compete with food production nor negatively impact on precious water resources.

Biomass is derived from organic material such as trees, plants and agricultural waste, and can be a sustainable energy source for heating, electricity generation and transport fuels. While increasing biomass production is seen as crucial to transitioning to a resource efficient economy, this must achieved in a sustainable manner.

A miscanthus plant exhibiting drought tolerance, grown at Braunschweig in Germany.

Credit: WATBIO/Photo: Kai Schwarz

High tech sustainable solutions

The project, launched in 2012 and running until 2017, has focused on improving three key perennial non-food crops – poplar, miscanthus and arundo – that potentially offer high biomass yield. Through the use of next-generation sequencing, researchers have been able to identify new variants with increased drought tolerance for poplar trees, miscanthus and arundo (types of tall grass), while at the same time increasing their genetic diversity.

WATBIO partners recently created mutant versions of the arundo plant, a development that greatly increases its potential as a cultivated crop. The team is now looking at opportunities to commercially exploit this new plant material. Developing new variants of these species with improved drought tolerance and yield will ensure that biomass productivity and quality in water-scarce marginal land can be maintained in environments deemed unsuitable for growing food crops.

Automated phenotyping of miscanthus at the National Plant Phenomics Centre in Aberystwyth