Designing Plants To Meet Feedstock Needs

Species suitable for providing biomass feedstocks are described together with the essential traits needed in such feedstocks. These traits include those that are essential for successful sustainable production in the field and for their use in conversion into biofuels and co-products. Features of plant breeding are summarized together with the evidence from corn and other crops that substantial gains can be made by breeding using existing methods. The new methods based on molecular genetics that will gradually come to dominate breeding of energy crops are then outlined. These include complete genome sequencing to describe the genetic variation available and the genetic basis of key traits. The use of molecular polymorphic markers to help enable and accelerate selection of improved crops using marker assisted breeding, association breeding and genomic selection is summarized. Finally, opportunities that come from the use of trangenes are outlined, covering both yield-based traits and the biosynthesis of novel chemicals.