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The yield of many staple crops could be boosted by 40 percent by a new process that adjusts the way they turn sunlight into energy, potentially feeding hundreds of millions of more people, American researchers said on Thursday.

Crops such as rice, wheat and soybeans, as well as fruits and vegetables have a naturally occurring 'glitch' in the way they photosynthesize that causes the plants to use up energy and resources, drastically suppressing productivity.

'The annual loss in production from wheat and soybean in Midwestern United States... is enough to feed roughly 200 million more people from this area alone,' Paul South, a molecular biologist and lead author, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The yield of many staple crops could be boosted by 40 percent by a new process that adjusts the way they turn sunlight into energy, potentially feeding hundreds of millions of more people, American researchers said

WHEN WILL THE SUPERCROPS TAKE ROOT? 

In more than two years of field studies, genetically engineered tobacco plants developed faster and put out more leaves and stems than plants that weren't modified.

Efforts are now underway to transplant these findings to boost yields of potatoes, cowpea, soybeans and rice, he added.

However, it takes 10-15 years for technologies like this to undergo rigorous regulatory approval process, which examines engineered crops for health and environmental impacts. 

 

Scientists from the University of Illinois and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agriculture Research Service changed how tobacco plants with the same glitch process sunlight, inserting genes from bacteria, green algae and other plants, they wrote in the journal Science.

They tested and compared three different genetic variations and found the most successful one saved enough energy and resources to increase productivity by 40 percent in real-world conditions.

In more than two years of field studies, the genetically engineered tobacco plants developed faster and put out more leaves and stems than plants that weren't modified, researchers said.

The photosynthesis process is 'nearly identical in plants so we expect that benefits observed in tobacco will result in changes to food crops,' said South.

Efforts are now underway to transplant these findings to boost yields of potatoes, cowpea, soybeans and rice, he added.

'It takes 10-15 years for technologies like this to undergo rigorous regulatory approval process, which examines engineered crops for health and environmental impacts. 

'Thus, it is all the more urgent to invest in these types of technologies today,' said South.

The study is part of an international project to boost global food production sustainably. 

Funders include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the British government.

Experts, however, say increased production of nutrient-rich foods, not just staple crops, is crucial to tackle the global malnutrition crisis which has left one in eight adults obese while one in nine people are hungry.

'Well, we need more of everything. The population alone is almost inevitably going up to 10 billion and people are eating richer (diets),' said Timothy Searchinger, lecturer at Princeton University and senior fellow at the World Resources Institute.

WHAT IS PHOTOSYNTHESIS? 

The process through which plants absorb light using chlorophyll to produce chemical energy in the form of oxygen, glucose and more is called photosynthesis.

During the process glucose is used by the plants to breathe or is converted into starch, while oxygen is released as a waste product – in turn giving us the air we need to breathe.

Scientists have observed the water splitting process in plants that creates oxygen, known as photosystem II. The cycle, illustrated here, has four steps. The largest change is between steps S1 and S3, so this is the part the scientists 'zoomed in' on to capture their freeze-frame

The rate of photosynthesis is altered by differing carbon dioxide levels and light intensity. If either is increased then the process will also increase, up to a limit.

Temperature also plays a part, with a higher temperature increasing the rate.

However if the temperature is too high, beyond 40C, the rate slows down.

Photosynthesis provides most of the energy necessary for life on Earth to exist.

But no way to artificially mimic the process has yet been created, leaving us dependent on plants to survive and thrive.

 

So the latest findings provide 'important, promising work as it may open up new ways to expand crop yields,' Searchinger, who authored a recent report on sustainable food systems, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

'Lots more work to be done... but glad the researchers have started focusing on some important C3 crops,' he added.

The term 'C3 crops' refer to most major food crops that uses the C3 photosynthesis process. Crops that use a different form of photosynthesis are maize, sugarcane and sorghum.

And unlike many technological innovations in agriculture which come with costly intellectual property rights, researchers say smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia would have royalty-free access to these breakthroughs.

Smallholder farmers managing between one to 10 hectares of land provide up to 80 percent of the food supply in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa but many are also extremely poor, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

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Main photo article The yield of many staple crops could be boosted by 40 percent by a new process that adjusts the way they turn sunlight into energy, potentially feeding hundreds of millions of more people, American researchers said on Thursday.
Crops such as rice, wheat and soybeans, as well as fruits and...

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Dianne Reeves US News HienaLouca





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