Genomic Strategies and Tools for Developing Climate Resilient Crops: Sorghum as a Model

The most drought resistant of the five most important cereal crops, and a key dual-use (grain and biomass) crop in regions containing some of the world’s most degraded soils, sorghum has inherent climate resilience that is likely to become more important under environmental conditions that are projected by many climate change models.  Some roles of sorghum in improving climate resilience of the global agro-ecosystem may include: (1) Increased production of sorghum itself as a source of food, feed, sugar, fodder, building material, and/or biofuel, perhaps further improving its inherent climate resilience; (2) A source of genes conferring some of its adaptations to other taxa; and (3) A model and potentially also a source of genes for implementation of alternative production systems that minimize costs, labor, and tillage and mitigate soil degradation while also capturing under-utilized resources and improving yield stability.