{"id":358326,"date":"2024-12-23T09:56:46","date_gmt":"2024-12-23T08:56:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=358326"},"modified":"2024-12-23T09:56:49","modified_gmt":"2024-12-23T08:56:49","slug":"genetic-tweak-to-three-key-crops-massively-boosts-their-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=358326","title":{"rendered":"Genetic tweak to three key crops massively boosts their\u00a0growth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Paul Homewood<\/p>\n\n\n\n

h\/t Philip Bratby<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who would have thought!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Global demand for food may rise by 60% mid-century. A central challenge is to meet this need using less land in a changing climate. Nearly all crop carbon is assimilated through Rubisco, which is catalytically slow, reactive with oxygen, and a major component of leaf nitrogen. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Developing more efficient forms of Rubisco, or engineering CO2<\/sub>\u00a0concentrating mechanisms into C3<\/sub>\u00a0crops to competitively repress oxygenation, are major endeavors, which could hugely increase photosynthetic productivity (\u2265 60%). <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

New technologies are bringing this closer, but improvements remain in the discovery phase and have not been reduced to practice. A simpler shorter-term strategy that could fill this time gap, but with smaller productivity increases (c. 10%) is to increase leaf Rubisco content. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This has been demonstrated in initial field trials, improving the productivity of C3<\/sub>\u00a0and C4<\/sub>\u00a0crops.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Combining three-dimensional leaf canopies with metabolic models infers that a 20% increase in Rubisco increases canopy photosynthesis by 14% in sugarcane (C4<\/sub>) and 9% in soybean (C3<\/sub>). <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is consistent with observed productivity increases in rice, maize, sorghum and sugarcane. Upregulation of Rubisco is calculated not to require more nitrogen per unit yield and although achieved transgenically to date, might be achieved using gene editing to produce transgene-free gain of function mutations or using breeding.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/full\/10.1111\/nph.20298<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All a bit arcane!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this is what it really means in English, as revealed by New Scientist:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A simple change to maize, sorghum and sugarcane that allows them to take advantage of rising CO2 <\/sub>levels can boost their growth by around a fifth.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The growth of maize, sugarcane and sorghum has been greatly boosted by modifying the plants to take advantage of higher carbon dioxide levels now found in the air.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was done by simply increasing the activity of two genes, says <\/em>Coralie Salesse-Smith<\/em><\/a> at the University of Illinois. The finding should lead to the creation of new varieties whose yields go up as CO2<\/sub> levels continue to rise.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/2460964-genetic-tweak-to-three-key-crops-massively-boosts-their-growth<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you Coralie and your colleagues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You are doing what proper scientists have always done in the past, and should be doing now. Contributing to the knowledge of how the world works, and finding ways to make all of our lives better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You shame the bunch of charlatans and cowboys, who hide behind their fake computer models and tell us we are destroying the planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Global demand for food may rise by 60% mid-century. A central challenge is to meet this need using less land in a changing climate. Nearly all crop carbon is assimilated through Rubisco, which is catalytically slow, reactive with oxygen, and a major component of leaf nitrogen. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":358330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691829997,691818056,691818241,691832236],"class_list":["post-358326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-carbon-dioxide-co","tag-climate-change","tag-food","tag-photosynthetic-productivity","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/0diagram-showing-process-of-photosynthesis-in-plant-free-vector.jpg?fit=1920%2C1250&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1vds","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":255277,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=255277","url_meta":{"origin":358326,"position":0},"title":"MSNBC \u2018Punks\u2019 GOP but Gets Caught Telling Lies About Starvation, Climate Deaths","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"04\/29\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"MSNBC\u2019s Alex Wagner aired a segment on April 28 titled, \u201cRepublican policy on climate change takes a turn for the absurd.\u201d The only problem was Wagner made provably false statements as \u2018proof\u2019 that the climate realist positions of Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Rep. 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