CHENOPODIUM QUINOA GROWS IN A WIDE RANGE OF ENVIRONMENTS AND CAN TOLERATE HIGH CONCENTRATION OF SALT IN THE SOIL BY EXCLUDING THE NA+ EXCESS AND SEQUESTERING IT IN THE EPIDERMAL SALT BLADDERS (EBC'S). OUR PRELIMINARY EXPERIMENTS SHOW THAT HEATING THE FLOWERS DURING THE DAY REDUCES YIELD, POLLEN GERMINATION, SEED NUMBER, AND FRUIT FORMATION IN QUINOA. WORLD AVERAGE TEMPERATURE IS INCREASING AND GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS WILL INCREASE AND CONTRIBUTE TO TEMPERATURE RISING. NIGHT TIME WARMING IS A COMPLEX PHENOMENON THAT CAUSES REDUCTION IN YIELD, PHOTOSYNTHETIC EFFICIENCY, AND INCREASE IN TRANSPIRATION RATES WHICH IS DETRIMENTAL FOR CROP PRODUCTION. THIS PHENOMENON IS RISING 1.4 TIMES FASTER THAN DAYTIME TEMPERATURES DUE TO AN INCREASE IN GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS. THE OVERALL GOAL OF THIS POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH PROJECT IS TO STUDY THE EFFECTS OF COMBINING HIGH NIGHT TEMPERATURE AND SALT STRESS ON YIELD USING PHENOMIC, IONOMIC AND TRANSCRIPTOMIC APPROACHES. AIM 1 OF THIS PROPOSAL WILL ASSESS THE EFFECT OF HIGH NIGHT TEMPERATURE COMBINED WITH SALT STRESS ON THE YIELD AND SEED/LEAF IONOMIC COMPOSITION OF 8 GENOTYPES (HEAT/SALT SENSITIVE, HEAT/SALT TOLERANT). AIM 2 WILL EVALUATE THE EFFECT OF HIGH NIGHT TEMPERATURE AND SALINITY STRESS ON QUINOA SALT EPIDERMAL BLADDERS AND POLLEN MORPHOLOGY. AIM 3 WILL USE TRANSCRIPTOMICS TO IDENTIFY COMMON AND SPECIFIC GENES RESPONDING TO COMBINED STRESS CONDITIONS THAT WILL HELP UNDERSTAND TOLERANCE MECHANISMS THAT THAT PLANT IS USING IN ORDER TO PROTECT THEMSELVES FROM THE ABIOTIC STRESSES APPLIED.