Plants convert sunlight into energy through photosynthesis, but this process involves a glitch — and an “expensive” fix, called photorespiration:
Researchers from the University of Illinois and U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service report in the journal Science that crops engineered with a photorespiratory shortcut are 40 percent more productive in real-world agronomic conditions.
[...]
Photosynthesis uses the enzyme Rubisco — the planet’s most abundant protein — and sunlight energy to turn carbon dioxide and water into sugars that fuel plant growth and yield. Over millennia, Rubisco has become a victim of its own success, creating an oxygen-rich atmosphere. Unable to reliably distinguish between the two molecules, Rubisco grabs oxygen instead of carbon dioxide about 20 percent of the time, resulting in a plant-toxic compound that must be recycled through the process of photorespiration.
“Photorespiration is anti-photosynthesis,” said lead author Paul South, a research molecular biologist with the Agricultural Research Service, who works on the RIPE project at Illinois. “It costs the plant precious energy and resources that it could have invested in photosynthesis to produce more growth and yield.”
Photorespiration normally takes a complicated route through three compartments in the plant cell. Scientists engineered alternate pathways to reroute the process, drastically shortening the trip and saving enough resources to boost plant growth by 40 percent. This is the first time that an engineered photorespiration fix has been tested in real-world agronomic conditions.[...]
The team engineered three alternate routes to replace the circuitous native pathway. To optimize the new routes, they designed genetic constructs using different sets of promoters and genes, essentially creating a suite of unique roadmaps. They stress tested these roadmaps in 1,700 plants to winnow down the top performers.
Over two years of replicated field studies, they found that these engineered plants developed faster, grew taller, and produced about 40 percent more biomass, most of which was found in 50-percent-larger stems.
The team tested their hypotheses in tobacco: an ideal model plant for crop research because it is easier to modify and test than food crops, yet unlike alternative plant models, it develops a leaf canopy and can be tested in the field. Now, the team is translating these findings to boost the yield of soybean, cowpea, rice, potato, tomato, and eggplant.
An enterprising evil grad student could weaponize kudzu and then hold the world ransom for…one million dollars!
Evolution produced another alternative, so-called C4 and CAM plants that produce four carbon products instead of the three carbon product of C3 plants. Unfortunately, the mutants are restricted to certain climates and do not thrive everywhere.
That last sentence is the funniest thing I’ve read this whole week.
The world is about to get very weird, very quickly.
Yeah, I’ve always thought that the reason we don’t see too many other intelligent lifeforms out there, or signs of them in terms of mega-structures visible from here, is that most don’t make it out of the period we’re in and heading into. Knowledge and technical accomplishment uncoupled with wisdom are likely fatal, on an ecology-wide basis. Which does not bode well for the future–Add in people of inimical intent, like terrorists seeking to destroy their “other”, and, well… I have my doubts about long-term viability of the thing we’ve named “intelligence” in this environment.
There’s probably a reason you don’t see too many aliens showing up here: They’re not out there, having killed themselves in the throes of the historical moment we’re going through, as we figure out the way the universe works and how to manipulate it. Without the wisdom to know what not to muck about with? I find projections of long-term success dubious. At best…
“…An enterprising evil grad student could weaponize kudzu…”
As I was reading your article the exact same thought passed into my head. I was thinking if someone put this in kudzu we would be ruined.
Think about how useless plants are though. From,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency
Plants, typical 0.1%[3]
0.2–2%[4]3.5-4.3%[5]
Typical crop plants 1–2%[3]
I read somewhere that you could make sugar from air and electricity. You could then feed the sugar to symbiotic yeast and bacteria genetically engineered to taste like steak and potatoes. The increase in efficiency would be stupendous. Using 20% efficient solar panels you could raise vast amounts of food. For a start you could just make cattle feed if you wished.