Federal Grant Award Summary

Fairleigh Dickinson University received a $199,844 Engineering Research Initiation (ERI) grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation (CFDA 47.041) awarded June 1, 2026, with completion targeted for May 31, 2028. The project delivers a systematic engineering research and education program investigating how mechanical stimuli influence plant growth and lodging resistance. Using a custom robotic platform to apply precise mechanical exercise to plant stems, the research will generate quantitative biomechanical data and predictive finite element models that establish engineering-based rules governing plant structural adaptation. The research leverages high-throughput phenotyping across two evolutionarily divergent plant species (Setaria italica and Arabidopsis thaliana) to test four primary adaptation mechanisms derived from established bone remodeling literature: load speed, magnitude, dose-dependency, and acclimation.

The award addresses the significant agricultural challenge of stalk lodging, which currently reduces global crop yields by 5 to 20 percent annually. By transforming qualitative observations into a rigorous engineering framework for plant morphogenesis, this research will provide mechanistically predictive tools linking environmental mechanical stimuli to plant resilience. The resulting data and models are designed to enable improved crop development strategies that enhance structural integrity against intensifying climate volatility, advancing both the biomechanics and mechanobiology fields through a unified, quantitative approach to understanding universal plant adaptation responses.