Project Grant 1449074

This $585,414 Project Grant award was provided by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program. The award supports research at Oklahoma State University (OSU) to address key challenges in hard winter wheat production, including identifying disease resistance genes and developing high-throughput phenotyping capabilities to rapidly screen for barley yellow dwarf virus resistance. The project aims to map resistance...

This federal Project Grant award, provided by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program (CFDA 10.310), aims to develop a new method for producing hybrid seeds in wheat and barley. The $649,976 award to the University of California, Davis will leverage advanced gene editing (CRISPR) and plant transformation techniques to induce conditional male sterility in diverse varieties of bread wheat and barley. This research...

This Project Grant award, totaling $225,000.00, was provided by the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) Competitive Grants Program (CFDA 10.310). The funding supports a research project led by Oregon State University to investigate how wheat cultivars and their associated microbial communities, or microbiomes, can be leveraged to enhance yield and improve resilience to abiotic and...

Federal Grant Award Summary Novin Agritech LLC received a $174,906 Project Grant from the Institute of Food Production and Sustainability under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program (CFDA 10.212) on September 15, 2025, for a 9-month project concluding May 14, 2026. The company will develop genetically improved wheat varieties with enhanced nitrogen use efficiency through advanced gene editing and genetic engineering technologies. Specifically, the project will design and...

Montana State University received a $644,293 Project Grant award from the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative competitive grants program. The four-year project aims to develop new wheat varieties with increased biomass and seed yield through genetic modifications to the Teosinte Branched 1 gene, which influences tiller production in cereal plants. The university will create new spring, winter, and...

Accelerated AG Technologies LLC received a $100,000 Project Grant award from the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture. The award was provided under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program / Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program (CFDA 10.212) to support the development of collection and preservation technology to enable on-demand pollination in commercial hybrid wheat systems. The SBIR/STTR programs are intended to...

The Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service awarded North Dakota State University a $371,333 Project Grant under the Agricultural Research Basic and Applied Research program (CFDA 10.001) to conduct wheat breeding for enhanced Fusarium head blight resistance in North Dakota. The grant period is from May 1, 2022 to April 30, 2026 and will support research to develop wheat varieties with improved resistance to Fusarium head blight, a fungal disease that reduces wheat yields and...

This federal Project Grant award, valued at $300,000.00 and provided by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) through the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program, aims to conduct greenhouse and laboratory research to evaluate the growth, developmental, and genetic basis of spring wheat response to multigenerational exposure to weed competition. The key objectives are to: (i) assess growth and developmental changes in wheat, (ii) evaluate hormonal...

This $180,000 Project Grant awarded by the Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (AFRI CFDA 10.310) to Colorado State University (CSU) aims to address two key questions related to disease resistance genes in plants. The first objective is to determine the function of a class of disease resistance proteins that are abundant in dicot plant species (e.g. vegetables, fruits) but present as a single gene in many monocot genomes (e.g. cereals, grains). This will be...

The Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture awarded Astalake Biosystems, Inc. $181,500 under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program to develop improved alfalfa varieties through synthetic biology. Alfalfa is a perennial legume with potential benefits to soil health, environmental health, and animal and human nutrition. Under this one-year project grant running from July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024, Astalake Biosystems will utilize its synthetic...