Brachypodium: Growing Grass for Energy

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Todd Mockler, an assistant professor of botany and plant pathology at Oregon State University, displays Brachypodium seedlings.

While herbaceous energy crops (especially grasses) are poised to become a major source of renewable energy in the United States, we know very little about the genetic traits that affect their utility for energy production. The temperate wild grass species, Brachypodium distachyon, is a new model plant being studied by DOE JGI for developing grasses into superior energy crops. Brachypodium is small in size, can be grown rapidly, is self-fertilizing, and has simple growth requirements. It can be used as a functional model to gain the knowledge about basic grass biology necessary to develop superior energy crops.

 

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