Fighting World Hunger: Robotics Aid in the Study of Corn and Drought Tolerance

Fighting World Hunger: Robotics Aid in the Study of Corn and Drought Tolerance from MU News Bureau on Vimeo.

Developing drought tolerant corn that makes efficient use of available water is vital to sustain the estimated 9 billion global population by 2050. In March 2014, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded the University of Missouri $20 million grant as part of a multi-institutional consortium to study how corn maintains root growth during drought conditions. Using funding from the NSF, Mizzou engineers on a multidisciplinary team have developed a robotic system that is changing the way scientists study crops and plant composition.