IPK Confronts Climate Change With Biodiversity In Agriculture

GATERSLEBEN, GERMANY - APRIL 22: Petri dishes containing sprouting barley embryos that have received spliced genetic material derived through the CRISPR-Cas9 editing process lie on shelves under light at the Leibnitz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK) on April 22, 2021 in Gatersleben, Germany. The IPK conserves approximately 150,000 live samples of nearly 3,000 species of crop plants and wild relatives. Through genetic sequencing the institute uses the samples as a resource for breeding biodiverse hybrids suited to modeled environmental scenarios of the future. The IPK also includes a hall that enables scientists to grow plants under precise environmental conditions, such as intensity and color temperature of light as well as temperature, humidity, CO2 content, air flow and other characteristics. Germany has seen consecutive years of drought that scientists expect to continue as a consequence of global warming, creating the need for crop plants better suited to thrive and provide high yields in dryer conditions. The IPK’s seed bank of crop plants is the largest in the European Union. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)