For decades, scientists have pursued intriguing possibilities for boosting food supplies and alleviating hunger among the world’s poorest people. It’s about improving photosynthesis, the biological process in plants that sustains nearly all life on Earth.
Researchers now say they have significantly increased the yield of the food crop soybean by using genetic modification to increase the efficiency of photosynthesis, and climate change and other threats could make such It’s a glimpse of how the method could one day bring more food to the table. Vulnerable people around the world find it difficult to support their families.
Scientists tested genetic mutations in soybeans grown in one location during just two harvest seasons. Their method also requires consultation with government regulators before crops thus converted reach farmers’ fields. must pass the
And while much soy is grown for livestock feed rather than humans, that’s just the beginning. In the long term, researchers hope to increase yields of staples such as rice, cowpea and cassava.
However, the world is projected to need a massive increase in food production to meet demand in the coming decades, and the findings suggest that such genetic manipulations show promise for meeting those needs. said Amanda P. De Souza, a crop scientist at the university.Illinois Urbana Champaign and lead author new research It describes results published Thursday in the journal Science.
“We have a long way to go to get there,” said Dr. De Souza. But “now is the time to work on as many new solutions as possible,” she said.
Humanity’s ability to be self-sufficient is under pressure as societies use land and water resources in an unsustainable manner. Human-induced climate change threatens to exacerbate the problem, with increasing droughts and storms further disrupting food supplies. Food production itself, including clearing forests for crops and grazing animals, is a major contributor to global warming.
Without major changes in agriculture, government goals to mitigate climate change are in jeopardy, scientists warn. It requires the use of more land and other resources, which could contribute to global warming.
That’s why scientific advances that help produce more nutrients without using more land, whether improving photosynthesis or not, hold such promise.
“Human civilization has reached a point where it must get more from less,” said Daniel Nepstad, executive director of the research group Earth Innovation Institute.
Still, Jonathan Foley, a climate scientist who runs Project Drawdown, a nonprofit that promotes efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, believes that other crops can provide quicker relief than better crops. You said you have a solution. For example, he cited a diet away from meat. Or reduce food waste.
“I always wonder,” Dr. Foley said. “Why did the elephant in the room disappear while I was chasing the mouse?”
In the late 20th century, many scientists believed that fine-tuning photosynthesis, the process by which plants use sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide to produce oxygen and energy-rich carbohydrates, would improve crop productivity. I paid attention to it as the next frontier to make it possible. However, they struggled to move forward. Some scientists have come to believe that there are biological factors that prevent plants from converting more efficient photosynthesis into additional growth.
New research in Illinois focuses on ‘non-photochemical quenching’, a mechanism that protects plants from sun damage. When plants are exposed to bright sunlight, they often receive more light energy than they can use for photosynthesis. But after the plants are shaded again, the plants do not die off immediately. That means plants waste precious time and energy that could be spent producing carbohydrates.
Researchers’ gene transformation helps plants adapt to shade more quickly. In multi-layered plants such as rice, wheat, maize and soybean, this extra agility could theoretically lead to increased photosynthesis in the leaf middle layer. Leaves are constantly moving between sunlight and shadow during the day.
This work was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research is a nonprofit organization in Washington, DC that receives funding from government, industry, and academia. and the UK Foreign Affairs, Commonwealth and Development Office.
In 2016, another author of the study, Stephen P. Long of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, showed that these changes increased tobacco plant growth by up to 20%. However, such findings face skepticism. some scientists have suggested The changes may have improved crop performance by affecting hormone levels rather than enhancing photosynthesis. , argues that natural selection would certainly have been improved by now.
Dr. Long said he believes this is a misunderstanding of the theory of evolution. Plants have evolved to reproduce, he said, but haven’t evolved to be as efficient as possible in producing larger seeds and other parts of interest to starving humans.
“Evolution is when genes pass themselves on to the next generation,” he said. “And productivity is only a small part of it.”
The next step for him and his colleagues was to try gene conversion in food crops. When they grew genetically modified soybeans on a farm at the University of Illinois in Urbana in 2020, the yield per hectare was on average 24.5 percent higher than the regular soybean plants grown for comparison. Plant seeds were similarly rich in protein compared to unmodified plant seeds.
The results of the second harvest in 2021 were less conclusive. The storm caused the leaves of the plant to collapse on top of each other, leaving the lower leaves virtually permanently shaded.
Thomas R. Sinclair, a crop scientist at North Carolina State University who wasn’t involved in the new study, said it would take more years of trials in more locations to be confident that these methods are effective. It says we need to check the data.Dr. Sinclair written with skepticism Among this line of research, the only proven way to increase crop yields is to help plants get more nutrients, such as nitrogen, which is a major component of many fertilizers.
Dr. Long said his team hopes to eventually conduct a five-year trial. He also plans to try the same changes with tropical soybeans and test them in Puerto Rico, he said.One of his team’s goals is to help farmers in developing countries grow their harvests. To make available seeds in large quantities.