By Jamie Martin
The Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research has granted almost $450,000 to Samuel B. Fernandes, assistant professor of agricultural statistics and quantitative genetics with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station. This is the station’s first New Innovator in Food & Agriculture Research Award, recognizing early-career scientists who address urgent agricultural challenges.
Fernandes leads a project to strengthen crop yield prediction by merging genomic information with crop growth models that reflect plant physiology and environmental interactions. He noted that severe weather events threaten food production, while current models often fail to capture complex genotype-by-environment effects.
"The current genomic prediction models that plant breeders use to develop crops that can withstand weather stresses struggle to make accurate predictions under scenarios of large genotype-by-environment interactions," said Fernandes, a faculty member in the experiment station's Center for Agricultural Data Analytics.
Elvis Elli, assistant professor of crop physiology, will supply the crop growth models. Both researchers are part of the Division of Agriculture’s Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences Department and the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences.
"Dr. Fernandes and his team are emerging leaders in his field," said Paul DeLaune, head of the Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences Department. "Using these new selection tools can limit a lot of guesswork and more accurately identify and select the most desirable traits for the most rapid pipeline from selection to field. We are excited to see the fruitful advancements discovered by collaborations between the Fernandes and Elli groups."
The New Innovator Award provides flexible funding for innovative food and agriculture research. Eleven scientists received awards this year, representing nearly $4.4 million in combined investments over three years, supporting advances in sustainable farming and food security.
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