What? Carbon to Roots aims to identify the genes responsible for roots that store carbon deeply and stably in the soil. The study will be conducted in alfalfa, the most grown legume forage in the world. Alfalfa is known for its deep roots, but also for having many varieties different from each other. This project will make use of these differences and identify what genes make roots deep and carbon-rich. Why? Global warming is one of the biggest challenges we are facing and agriculture is one of the main contributors to this problem. Hence, the goal of Carbon to Roots is to use crops to remove carbon from the atmosphere and bring it deep into the soil. The knowledge acquired in this project can be used for improving existing alfalfa varieties, but also for increasing carbon absorption in other crops. How? The project will be conducted at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego (USA) and will be included in Salk’s Harnessing Plants Initiative under the supervision of Prof. Wolfgang Busch. It will use the cutting-edge phenotyping technology and infrastructure available at Salk and couple it with expertise in advanced genomics and transcriptomics to obtain the defined objectives.