Source: IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY submitted to
NIFA AG2PI COLLABORATIVE: CONTINUING TO SEED THE FUTURE OF AGRICULTURAL GENOME TO PHENOME RESEARCH
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
TERMINATED
Funding Source
OTHER GRANTS
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1029371
Grant No.
2022-70412-38454
Project No.
IOW05697
Proposal No.
2022-07353
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Program Code
AG2PI
Project Start Date
Sep 15, 2022
Project End Date
Sep 14, 2024
Grant Year
2022
Project Director
Schnable, P. S.
Recipient Organization
IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY
2229 Lincoln Way
AMES,IA 50011
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
To address the challenges and opportunities of achieving sustainable genetic improvement of agricultural species, thereby enhancing the sustainability and profitability of US agriculture, the current agricultural genome to phenome initiative (AG2PI) project has built a large transdisciplinary community of researchers spanning crops and livestock, as well as integrative disciplines (e.g., engineers, data scientists, and social scientists). The overall objective of the AG2PI is to provide competitive funds to conduct AG2P research that will benefit the broader community. The project will: implement a vision for AG2P research that has been developed with community input over the past two years by providing seed grants that will help close research gaps and support new and emerging opportunities. It features a robust project management plan, involving leaders with the requisite experience in managing large complex projects (including seed grant programs), implementation plans based on best practices, and the science of team science, coupled with a robust assessment plan to refine best practices. A comprehensive and inclusive scientific advisory board, stakeholders, and partner organizations will assist the team with meeting its objectives and ensuring that its activities coordinate and complement existing AG2P programs in crops and livestock. The project will continue developing a cross-kingdom community prepared to tackle AG2P research and offer opportunities to develop novel and creative solutions to enhance our understanding of both kingdoms, for the benefit of US agriculture and society. The current AG2PI team is well positioned to accomplish these tasks to produce quick results with proven procedures and processes.
Animal Health Component
0%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
100%
Applied
0%
Developmental
0%
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
2012410106050%
3043910106050%
Knowledge Area
201 - Plant Genome, Genetics, and Genetic Mechanisms; 304 - Animal Genome;

Subject Of Investigation
3910 - Cross-commodity research--multiple animal species; 2410 - Cross-commodity research--multiple crops;

Field Of Science
1060 - Biology (whole systems);
Goals / Objectives
The major goal ofAG2PIis tobetter understand how genotype (G) and environment (E) influence phenotype for the complex traits of crops and livestock that are important to agriculturein order tomeet the challenges of an increasing global population and multiple environmental stressors on agricultural production. Whereas the first two years of AG2PI focused on creating a transdisciplinary community poised to address cross-kingdom challenges, this new award will help advance the science of agricultural G2P.The overall objective of the proposed project is to use a peer-review based competitive process (seed grants) in coordination and approved by NIFA to: (1) develop tools and datasets that can be used to advance genome engineering tools; (2) mitigate environmental impacts from agriculture; and (3) encourage development of root stocks that increase carbon capture and can support grain crop covers.To meet this overall objective, we will expand the seed grant program effectively deployed during the currentawards(2020-70412-32615 and 2021-70412-35233). As we do so, we will reference existing community concept papers on genome to phenome research in crops and livestock and consider the short, medium, and long-term priorities to be identified in the upcoming think tank-like workshop in September 2022.
Project Methods
The AG2PI team will organize and release a single request for proposals (RFP) for coconut seed grants that address one of the three topics outlined in the objectives or a related topic identified in our community surveys as being of major cross-kingdom importance. Applicants will be asked to include a request for travel funding so that they can present the results of their awards at relevant scientific venue(s). Proposals will be reviewed by the AG2PI Executive Board. Reviewer feedback will be given to lead investigators of proposals that were responsive to the call for proposals but not selected for funding. To provide larger seed grants than were possible in our two prior projects we will limit the number of coconut seed grants to 8-12, each of which will be funded between $100,000-$250,000. This decision to increase the award size is consistent with community feedback received during the current projects and our assessment that the community has matured to a level where the overall ROI (Return on Investment) for the community from fewer larger awards will be greater than from more smaller awards. We will continue to prioritize funding decisions based on scientific merit, AG2PI program goals, and proposals led by early career scientists and members of underrepresented communities. Members of the PI team will not be eligible to seek or receive funding from the coconut seed grant program.Awarded project teams will be asked to present their work in a field day or training workshop organized by AG2PI. Each awarded team will submit a progress report halfway into their project to ensure they are on track as well as a final report that details outcomes/deliverables, challenges encountered, and future plans. This information will be reviewed by the PI team and shared with NIFA with the intent of benefitting NIFA's future RFAs.Lessons Learned: Informing and Improving the ProcessIn preparation for the coconut seed grant RFA and review of proposals, the PI team will solicit: (1) input from the AG2PI's Steering Committee about priority areas for funding (within the topics outlined in NIFA's RFA and in consideration of input received from our community surveys and during discussions that will take place during our two-day workshop scheduled for September 2022); and (2) feedback from previous awardees aimed at improving the submission process.Subawards are being managed by the project manager in coordination with Iowa State University's Office of Sponsored Programs Administration (OSPA). The award process has been revised twice over to decrease administrative burden and shorten the timeline to award. The process will be evaluated and updated as necessary.

Progress 09/15/22 to 08/31/24

Outputs
Target Audience:This project involves researchers, students, businesses, and other organization types (governmental, NGO, etc.) from across the agricultural sector. Individuals from both crop and livestock communities as well as integrative disciplines (e.g., engineers, data scientists, economists, and social scientists) have engaged with AG2PI activities and content. The AG2PI community includes founding stakeholder and partner organizations, both domestic and global (for full list of partner organizations visit https://www.ag2pi.org/institutional-involvement/) that have shared AG2PI communications and events since the start of the original project in 2020. Since the project's start, other organizations' listservs have been added to AG2PI mailings, including Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT), Animal Geneticists' Discussion Group and DivSeek International. To ensure the inclusion of under-represented minorities (URM), we have used inclusive language in our seed grant request for proposals and considered seed grant proposals that provide an opportunity for increasing involvement in agricultural and G2P research and knowledge-sharing. Opportunities have been shared directly with URM-serving organizations such as SACNAS, MANNRS and the Association of 1890 Research Directors. Changes/Problems:One coconut project faced some challenges with data sharing. The problem is the size of the data files and paying for the storage services after the project (i.e., funding) has ended. Other areas of challenges are when a storage platform changes their services or when a key team member retires. The team shared that they had investigated USDA-National Ag Libraries, Amazon Web Services, the library system and many more but they were not able to find a suitable repository/storage solution. In addition to where to store the data, it was noted that while AG2PI funded the processing of this data, the collection of the data was done by individual investigators throughout the country and those individuals retain the data - they would need to sign off on storing their data in a central location. The third complication is that when data is freely available it can be misused - this team has shared that their data has been already used without proper citation. Overall long-term support will be needed to sustain access to these types of large datasets. As a community-building project, AG2PI is in a unique position to support the agricultural genome to phenome workforce pipeline. As such, the AG2PI Student Conference Travel Awards were created to encourage undergraduate and graduate students to share their work at conferences and network with community members. Returned seed funds and other unused funds were used to support these awards, which were paid out as reimbursements. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Training and development opportunities were presented to coconut grant PIs during the 2023 AG2PI conference, in which they were asked not only to present on their grant project but also to work with others to talk through the biggest challenges facing advancements in agricultural genomes to phenomes research and related work. Awardees were also invited to present their project deliverables in an AG2PI-organized field day in early 2024. Projects were paired (based on PI availability) such that two projects were presented in a single field day, across three field days. Using returned seed grant funds, 63 doctoral and master's students had their conference travel supported. These awards provided students with professional development with respect to sharing their research with peers, networking and learning about others' research directions. Students represented 26 states and 27 institutions. Conferences attended included American Society of Animal Scientists, American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineersand National Association of Plant Breeders. Supported students presented their work in disciplines across the plant sciences, animal science and engineering. Some of these presentations were shared on social media and tagged AG2PI (#AG2PI or @AG2PI). A survey was sent to all 133 awardees about their conference experiences and 91% of awardees (62 out of 68 respondents) stated they likely would not have attended the conference without the travel support (paid as a reimbursement), while 100% of these students stated they would like to see more opportunities like this offered by USDA NIFA. Conference activities they partook in included: 99% networked with others outside of their university; 96% presented their research, 75% participated in conference activities outside of the scientific program; 56% networked with others from their university; and 34% participated in pre-conference workshops. Students reported that some of their best experiences from their conference travels included: "Meeting other graduate students in my field of nanotechnology and plant biology. I felt like my research was really appreciated." "Got connected with professionals from different institutions related to my research. I could discuss problems and potential solutions in my current research projects." "It was amazing to make new connections! I met people at this conference that I am still in touch with on a weekly basis. These professional connections outside the university have come up again and again this year, specifically due to this conference! I'm very grateful for that networking opportunity." "Meeting other early career scientists with similar background and experience to mine. Science can be isolating, but making friends who occupy the same niche can be rewarding!" "Meeting our collaborators from the United Kingdom, including a member of my doctoral committee, in-person." Most of these responses included networking with others, receiving feedback on their work, and/or hearing about others' research. Of the 63 awards made, 8 students declined the award when either they were no longer able to attend the conference or they secured different funding to support their travel. Across all three awards, 12 students declined awards bringing the total awards paid out to 121. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? This project reaches researchers, students, and companies from across the agricultural sector by leveraging stakeholder and partner organizations, both domestic and global, to distribute information on project activities and events. This has led to a great diversity of participants, based on information collected at event registration during the 2020 award project (NIFA grant no. 2020-70412-32615), as well as from across disciplines (e.g., Complex Modeling, Crop, Data Science/Bioinformatics, Data Storage/Security/Cyberinfrastructure, Education, Engineering, Ethical/Legal/Social Implications/Policy, Livestock/Aquaculture, Microbes, Model Organisms) that continues to grow. AG2PI includes members who share information on upcoming AG2PI activities with various URM organizations, such as MANNRS and SACNAS, particularly with respect to the seed grant opportunity. Twitter/X (@AG2PI; 704 followers) and LinkedIn accounts (266 followers) are used for advertising upcoming events and to reach broader audiences who may prefer social media over email for their communications. In this way the project cuts across generational differences in communication preferences. Dissemination of coconut project activities are primarily the responsibility of the project teams, but, when appropriate, AG2PI shares these outcomes on the website under the "Funded Seed Grants" page, retweets or distributes through the AG2PI listserv. Coconut grant outcomes are organized within the funded project description, along with the narrative from the proposal. These can be found at https://www.ag2pi.org/resources/ag2pi-funded-seed-grants/#coconut. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Impact statement: The overall objective of the proposed project is to use a peer-review based competitive process (seed grants) in coordination and approved by NIFA to: (1) develop tools and datasets that can be used to advance genome engineering tools; (2) mitigate environmental impacts from agriculture; and (3) encourage development of root stocks that increase carbon capture and can support grain crop covers. To meet this overall objective, we will expand the seed grant program effectively deployed during the current projects. The purpose of this project has been to leverage the activities of the existing NIFA-funded AG2PI projects (USDA NIFA grant no. 2020-70412-32615 and 2021-70412-35233) that have developed a cross-kingdom community that is now prepared and well positioned to tackle cross-cutting, impactful AG2P research. To meet this overall objective of supporting community solutions to shared challenges, we have expanded and improved upon the seed grant program effectively deployed during the ongoing 2020 AG2PI project to develop them into larger seed grants, which we term "coconut" grants. The seven awarded projects were successful in achieving their goals, as expected, but were also quite successful in combining teams with previous/other AG2PI awardees to apply for new funding to work towards common goals. The network discovery and connections made through these awards demonstrate the emergent qualities and successes programs like AG2PI afford and eventually realize: this particular AG2PI project saw a realization of these affordances at a pleasantly surprising speed. One awarded team ("Federated Learning for Genomic Prediction") combined with an awarded team from the Round 3 seed grants (USDA NIFA #2021-70412-35233) to scale up their efforts into a 2023 USDA NIFA AG2PI awarded project (USDA NIFA #2023-70412-41054). Continuing to work on data privacy, security and sharing, they will use the new award to address new problems they encountered during the life of the coconut grant, such as: dealing with partially overlapping marker sets, implementing PCA for horizontally partitioned data and improved synchronous analysis models. Two Coconut Grant Awardees (Dr. Jung, "Open-Source Online Platform for UAS High Throughput Phenotyping Data Management" and Dr. Rife, "Developing Robust Imaging Platforms for Routine Plant Phenotyping") combined their teams for a full USDA NIFA AG2PI proposal. Recognizing that each team could benefit from the collaboration, they sought to combine expertise and scale up their efforts more quickly than either could accomplish alone. Coconut grant co-PIs Drs. Feldmann and Runcie were awarded an AFRI Foundational and Applied Science - Plant Breeding grant to study resistance to multiple fruit rot pathogens in strawberry that is a direct follow up to this award. They applied the theoretical findings they made through their coconut grant project into the design of new experiments, materials and methods, and the philosophy behind a newly awarded, proposal. Furthermore, when the team presented in AG2PI Field Day #30 they fielded a large number questions and post-event follow ups, which eventually led to conversations with Breeding Insight at Cornell about future collaborations. Internal assessment has been conducted by the AG2PI project manager and focused on the coconut grants. Compared to previous seed grant opportunities provided through the two previous AG2PI program awards to this team in 2020 and 2021, few Coconut grant PIs are early career. Senior PIs and teams were more successful in submitting strong proposals for these larger fund opportunities. Prospective early career proposal leads might have benefitted from additional help in creating their proposals. Future RFAs should direct all applicants to training or informational materials on how to prepare these types of proposals. The most commonly reported challenges by seed grant awardees in their progress and final reports (and across our previous AG2PI awards) are 1) difficulty within their institutions to get award monies into accounts, and 2) hiring specialists and technicians. Delays in completing deliverables have been directly tied to both of these challenges. We do not have any insight on how these challenges can be solved, but they directly affect the success of these projects and therefore are of concern to the AG2PI project and larger program.

Publications

  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Anna Porter, Seth C Murray, Mahendra Bhandari, Jose L. Landivar Scott, Mustafa Arik, Aaron James DeSalvio, Alper Adak. 2024. Facilitating community unoccupied aerial systems (UAS, drone) knowledge, communication, and data processing across agriculture. North American Plant Phenotyping Network. February 13-15. West Lafeyette, IN.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Mahendra Bhandari, Jose Landivar, Seth Murray, Lei Zhao, Juan Landivar, Mahmoud Eldefray. UAV-based High-Throughput Phenotyping: From Sensors to Data Driven Decision Support. PhenoHarmonics Workshop, 27-30 May, 2024 in Montpellier, France
  • Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2024 Citation: Genomic Prediction Sheds Light on the Pleiotropic Tradeoffs Between Shelf Life, Sweetness, and Acidity in Strawberry. Nico Jimenez, Mitchell Feldmann, Daniel Runcie, Hao Cheng (in preparation)
  • Type: Other Status: Submitted Year Published: 2024 Citation: Why is usefulness rarely useful Fangyi Wang, Mitchell J. Feldmann, Daniel E. Runcie bioRxiv 2024.04.12.589314; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.04.12.589314
  • Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2024 Citation: Early Stage Genomic Prediction of Hybrid Performance Increases Breeding Speed and Expected Genetic Gains in Strawberry Mitchell Feldmann and Daniel Runcie (in preparation)
  • Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2024 Citation: How genomic and phenomic prediction complement and compete Mitchell Feldmann and Daniel Runcie (in preparation)
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Laurel Cooper, The Planteome Knowledgebase in 2024- New Tools and Resources for Plant Genomics. January 2024 Plant and Animal Genome 2024 conference, San Diego, CA
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Hancock, B., Jung, J., Fei, S., Yang, Y., Tuinstra, M., Wang, D., Song, C., Gillan, J., Bhandari, M., Ibrahim, A. M. H., Zhao, L., Swetnam, T., & Barker, B. (2023) Open-Source Online Platform for UAS High Throughput Phenotyping (HTP) Data Management [Abstract]. ASA, CSSA, SSSA International Annual Meeting, St. Louis, MO. https://scisoc.confex.com/scisoc/2023am/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/154040
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2023 Citation: Poster: Seth C Murray, Mahendra Bhandari, Jose L. Landivar Scott, Mustafa Arik, Aaron James DeSalvio, Alper Adak. 2023. Facilitating community unoccupied aerial systems (UAS, drone) knowledge, communication, and data processing across agriculture. National Association of Plant Breeders annual meeting. 7/16-20/2023 Greenville, S.C.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Blessing Olabosoye, James Koltes, Robert Tempelman, Gustavo de los Campos, Mike VandeHaar, and Juan Steibel. 2023. Enhancing Genomic Prediction through Transfer Learning and Meta-analysis. NSIF Conference, St. Louis, MO
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Blessing Olabosoye, Gustavo de los Campos, and Juan Steibel. 2024. Transfer Learning and Meta-analysis Strategies for Optimizing Genomic Prediction Accuracy without Data Sharing. AGBTAg, Phoenix, AZ.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Gustavo De Los Campos, Juan Steibel, Jack Dekkers, Hao Cheng. 2024. Regularization and transfer learning in genomic models through gradient descent with early stopping. AGBTAg, Phoenix, AZ.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Hancock, B., Qian, C., & Jung, J. Digital Forestry Online Platform Development. Digital Forestry Retreat, West Lafayette, IN., Aug. 1, 2023.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Hancock, B., Jung, J., Fei, S., Tuinstra, M., Yang, Y., Wang, D., Song, C., Gillan, J., Bhandari, M., Ibrahim, A., Zhao, L., Swetnam, T., & Barker, B. Open-Source Online Platform for UAS HTP Data Management. ASA, CSSA, and SSSA International Annual Meeting, St. Louis, MO., Oct. 30, 2023.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Jung, M., Carpenter, J., Fei, S., & Jung, J. Effects of Location Error, Point Density and Acquisition Period on Aboveground Biomass Estimation Using UAS Lidar Point Clouds in Hardwood Forest. ASA, CSSA, SSSA International Annual Meeting, St. Louis, MO., Oct. 31, 2023.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Hancock, B. & Jung, J. Data to Science Engine: Online collaborative platform to integrate geospatial data with science. Purdue GIS Day, West Lafayette, IN., Nov. 9, 2023.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Hancock, B. & Jung, J. Open-Source Online Platform for UAS HTP Data Management. Indiana GIS Day, Indianapolis, IN., Nov. 15, 2023.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Jung, M., Carpenter, J., Fei, S., & Jung, J. Aboveground biomass estimation of norther hardwood forest using UAS lidar. North American Plant Phenotyping Network (NAPPN) Annual Conference, West Lafayette, IN., Feb. 13-15, 2024.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Jung, M., Hancock, B., & Jung, J. Data to Science: UAS data management system for agricultural scientists. Joint Poster Session of College of Agriculture and College of Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN., Mar. 29, 2024.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Jung, J., Fei, S., Tuinstra, M., Yang, Y., Diane Wang, Carol Song, Purdue Univ. (United States); Jeffrey Gillan, The Univ. of Arizona (United States); Mahendra Bhandari, Amir Ibrahim, Texas A&M Univ. (United States); Lan Zhao, Purdue Univ. (United States); Tyson Swetnam, The Univ. of Arizona (United States); Bryan Barker, Oracle (United States); Minyoung Jung, Ben Hancock. Data to science: an open-source online platform for managing, visualizing, and publishing UAS data. SPIE Defense and Commercial Sensing, Washington D.C., Apr. 22-23, 2024.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Heather Manching discussing benefits of imaging in Citrus. Title: Establishing the Foundation for Integrating Advanced Breeding Strategies in Citrus: A Focus on High-Quality Phenotyping. August 1, 2023. American Society for Horticultural Science Conference. Orlando, FL.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Jordan A. James, Heather K. Manching, Matthew R. Mattia, Kim D. Bowman, Amanda M. Hulse-Kemp, William J. Beksi. Transforming Advanced Machine Learning Algorithms into Accessible Tools for Breeding. January 13, 2024. Plant and Animal Genome Conference. Poster. San Diego, CA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Trevor Rife, Field Book: Past, Present and Future. 2024 Plant and Animal Genome Conference. Talk. January 12, 2024. San Diego, CA


Progress 09/15/22 to 09/14/23

Outputs
Target Audience:This project involves researchers, students, businesses, and other organization types (governmental, NGO, etc.) from across the agricultural sector. Individuals from both crop and livestock communities as well as integrative disciplines (e.g., engineers, data scientists, economists, and social scientists) have engaged with AG2PI activities and content. The AG2PI community includes founding stakeholder and partner organizations, both domestic and global (for full list of partner organizations visit https://www.ag2pi.org/institutional-involvement/) that have shared AG2PI communications and events since the start of the original project in 2020. To ensure the inclusion of under-represented minorities, we have used inclusive language in our seed grant request for proposals and considered seed grant proposals that provide an opportunity for increasing involvement in agricultural and G2P research and knowledge-sharing. Changes/Problems:Executive Board member Eric Lyons has been removed from the project; he has accepted a program manager position at National Science Foundation. Although he has contributed mightily to this project, this change will not affect our ability to complete the project's goals during the second year of this award. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Training and development opportunities were presented to coconut grant PIs during the 2023 AG2PI conferences, in which they were asked not only to present on their grant project but also to work with others to talk through the biggest challenges facing advancements in agricultural genomes to phenomes research and related work. Awardees will also be provided the opportunity to present on their project deliverables in an AG2PI-organized field day or training workshop in 2024. Awardees will be invited to any future AG2PI-organized conference, should one be held. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?This project reaches researchers, students, and companies from across the agricultural sector by leveraging stakeholder and partner organizations, both domestic and global, to distribute information on project activities and events. This has led to a great diversity of participants, based on information collected at event registration during the 2020 award project (NIFA grant no. 2020-70412-32615), as well as from across disciplines (e.g., Complex Modeling, Crop, Data Science/Bioinformatics, Data Storage/Security/Cyberinfrastructure, Education, Engineering, Ethical/Legal/Social Implications/Policy, Livestock/Aquaculture, Microbes, Model Organisms) that continues to grow. AG2PI includes members who share information on upcoming AG2PI activities with various URM organizations, such as MANNRS and SACNAS, particularly with respect to the seed grant opportunity. Twitter (@AG2PI; 566 followers as of August 8, 2023) and LinkedIn (166 followers) accounts are used for advertising awarded coconut grants as well as their associated activities. In this way the project cuts across generational differences in communication preferences. A mini-conference was held December 2, 2022, to describe the coconut grant RFP and to answer any questions about the opportunity. This event was advertised via the AG2PI website, listservs belonging to AG2PI and associated organizations, Twitter and LinkedIn. The RFP was advertised through the same channels and prospective proposers were encouraged to reach out via email with any questions. Dissemination of coconut project activities are primarily the responsibility of the project teams, but, when appropriate, AG2PI shares these outcomes on the website under the "Funded Seed Grants" page, retweets or distributes through the AG2PI listserv. For example, one PI of a coconut grant requested AG2PI's help in disseminating, through the listserv, a call for travel support to graduate students and early career professionals interested in Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) phenotyping applications in U.S. agriculture and natural resources. The travel support was to attend the S1069 USDA multi-state meeting in Virginia., where the AG2PI project supported attendance of an additional 10 graduate students and postdocs from across the country. The PI reported that AG2PI's support greatly enhanced the energy and scientific discourse of the meeting. There were over 63 applicants for this travel support, demonstrating growing demand for the topic. Coconut grant outcomes are organized within the funded project description, along with the narrative from the proposal. These can be found at https://www.ag2pi.org/resources/ag2pi-funded-seed-grants/#coconut. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Coconut grant awardees will be asked to present on their work in AG2PI organized virtual field days or training workshops; whichever event type is the best fit for disseminating outcomes of that particular project. Outcomes will continue to be shared with the AG2PI community via emails and social media.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Impact statement: The overall objective of the proposed project is to use a peer-review based competitive process (seed grants) in coordination and approved by NIFA to: (1) develop tools and datasets that can be used to advance genome engineering tools; (2) mitigate environmental impacts from agriculture; and (3) encourage development of root stocks that increase carbon capture and can support grain crop covers. To meet this overall objective, we will expand the seed grant program effectively deployed during the current projects. The purpose of this project has been to leverage the activities of the existing NIFA-funded AG2PI projects (USDA NIFA grant no. 2020-70412-32615 and 2021-70412-35233) that have developed a cross-kingdom community that is now prepared and well positioned to tackle cross-cutting, impactful AG2P research. To meet this overall objective of supporting community solutions to shared challenges, we have expanded and improved upon the seed grant program effectively deployed during the ongoing 2020 AG2PI project to develop them into larger seed grants, which we term "coconut" grants. The Coconut grant opportunity focused on supporting research projects that have applications to both crops and livestock. In general, proposals for activities that span both plant and animal systems were most successful, but single species/domain proposals that described how the work will apply across kingdoms were also awarded. Projects addressing any of the three topic areas identified by USDA as special topics of interest were especially encouraged (e.g., Develop tools and datasets that can be used across multiple crop species to advance genome engineering tools for integrated optimization of crop yield and livestock feed for improved animal reproduction and nutrition; Mitigate environmental impacts from crop and livestock production; Encourage development of root stocks that increase carbon capture and can support grain crop cover) but additional topics identified in the AG2PI community surveys as being of major cross-kingdom importance were also considered. Any institution eligible for subcontract funding under the USDA's AG2PI RFA was eligible to apply for seed grants. Awards were given across five topic areas, ranged from $175,000-250,000 and have durations of 12 months with a start date of March 1, 2023. Seven of the 40 submitted, eligible proposals were awarded; two of those proposals were awarded after revision for lesser budgets than what was included in their original proposals. As such, we have awarded seven coconut grants to principal investigators at academic institutions in seven states (Arizona, California, Indiana, Iowa, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas) for a total of $1,302,094 awarded. Awarded teams represent a total of 11 institutions from 10 states and Australia. Expected deliverables include training workshops, field days, new or updated software and analytical tools, datasets and databases. Outcomes will be shared as publications and through conference presentations. Narratives of awarded projects and their deliverables (as they are received) can be found at https://www.ag2pi.org/resources/ag2pi-funded-seed-grants/#coconut. Progress reports have been received and deliverables completed to date are linked on the AG2PI website and provided in the "Products" section of this report. Principal investigators of awarded coconut grant teams were invited to attend the 2023 AG2PI conference "Mapping the Future of Agricultural Genome to Phenome Research" held June 15-16 in Kansas City, MO, and co-hosted by USDA NIFA. They were asked to participate in small group breakout discussions but were not asked to formally present on their projects since only a few months had passed since their projects had started. One team did share a poster at the conference (PI: Juan Steibel). This team has also presented on their work in an AG2PI field day that was held June 21, 2023, via Zoom. Details of this field day can be found in the Products section of the Progress Report for 2020 AG2PI project. Internal assessment is being conducted by the AG2PI project manager and focuses on the coconut grants. Compared to previous seed grant opportunities provided through the two previous AG2PI program awards to this team in 2020 and 2021 awards, few Coconut grant PIs are early career. Senior PIs and teams were more successful in submitting strong proposals. Prospective early career proposal leads could have benefitted from additional help in creating their proposals. Future RFAs should direct all applicants to training or informational materials on how to prepare these types of proposals. The most commonly reported challenges by seed grant awardees in their progress reports (and across our previous AG2PI awards) are 1) difficulty within their institutions to get award monies into accounts, and 2) hiring specialists and technicians. Delays in completing deliverables have been directly tied to both of these challenges. We do not have any insight on how these challenges can be solved, but they directly affect the success of these projects and therefore are of concern to the AG2PI project and larger program.

Publications