ESTABLISHMENT OF AN EPIGENETIC CROP IMPROVEMENT STRATEGY IN MULTIPLE CROP SPECIES

Epigenetics is the study of how genes are expressed to influence plant behavior. Epigenetic breeding involves new methods that allow manipulation of gene expression patterns to render plants more environmentally resilient and vigorous in growth. These approaches, incorporating non-GMO methods and grafting, can serve to rapidly enhance traits like stress tolerance and yield, where progress is generally extremely slow and incremental using traditional methods. Development of innovative crop breeding strategies to address challenges of climate change will be important to enhancing yield stability in the future.