Just What is a “Farm”

The 2007 Census of Agriculture showed that the number of farms in the United States has grown since 2002. Conversely, the Census showed that, as they have since 1935, South Dakota’s farm numbers continued to decline (though between 2002 and 2007 the rate of decline slowed signifi-cantly). These opposing facts (i.e., national growth vs. South Dakota decline) have motivated calls to South Dakota State University’s Rural Life and Census Data Center. The calls ask basically the same question: “Just what is a farm?” It’s a relevant question

Designing a Reporter Construct and CRISPR Construct to Identify the Role of AtCDT1 in Aluminum and Cadmium Tolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana

The gene CDT1 was first discovered in the crabgrass Digitaria cilaris to confer cadmium tolerance. Five homologs of this gene exist in rice (Oryza sativa), one of which, OsCDT3, was found to confer aluminum tolerance, instead of cadmium tolerance. The homolog of this gene in Arabidopsis thaliana (AtCDT1), is currently under study. Arabidopsis plants carrying a T-DNA insertion mutation in this gene were found to overexpress AtCDT1 in response to cadmium, but not to aluminum, suggesting that AtCDT1 is cadmium responsive, not aluminum responsive. This research study aims to learn more about the AtCDT1 gene and its potential involvement in tolerance to aluminum toxicity. The current study proposes a reporter construct to show where in the plant and when during development the AtCDT1 gene is expressed in Arabidopsis, with predictions that it is expressed in the cell membrane of cells in the roots, and throughout development of the Arabidopsis plant. Preliminary CRISPR constructs were designed to be used in further research to design a knockout line of Arabidopsis for the AtCDT1 gene, to determine its potential function in tolerance to only aluminum, only cadmium, both, or neither of these metals