A team of researchers, managed by the University of Minnesota, received the first round of funding from a $10 million grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to follow up on their work with VitisGen2, a multi-disciplinary, collaborative project focused on cultivating disease-resistant grapes that can be grown sustainably with reduced pesticide and fossil fuel use.
The funding will allow researchers to build upon VitisGen and VitisGen2 to bring the work across the finish line. They plan to advance grape breeding by using the latest technologies to identify and test gene candidates, deliver advanced information, including computer-vision phenotyping, artificial intelligence and DNA markers, to all U.S. grape breeders, develop disease-control programs, and train vineyard managers and Extension personnel across the U.S. in their use.
Source: twin-cities.umn.edu