The Sweet CAP team includes top scientists from multiple institutions throughout the US, all focused on collaborating together to improve sweet corn. 

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Why focus on sweet corn?

American eating habits are changing, including a decrease in vegetable consumption. While sweet corn is one of the most popularly consumed vegetables in the US, sweet corn has a narrow range of genetic diversity. This is a major issue when considering resistance to pests and increasing abiotic stresses on crops due to climate change. Therefore, identifying genetic traits responsible for the success of sweet corn is imperative to protecting this favored vegetable as environments continue to change along with global warming.

Major goals of the Sweet CAP Project are:

• Developing new breeding technologies to address seed company and processor stakeholder’s concerns regarding limitations in sweet corn production
• Investigating genetic mechanisms in sweet corn required for harvest and marketability, insect and disease resistance, cold tolerance, and eating quality and aroma
• Determining physiological and economic trade-offs for consumer preference and valuation of traits

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 The Sweet CAP project is funded by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA award number).