Scientists engineered plants with a photosynthesis “shortcut” to increase crop production by up to 40%, according to a research article published in Science journal.
The study shows scientific evidence of how seed germs could be re-engineered to help feed a growing world population over the coming decades.
During research, scientists tested three different pathways to improve photosynthesis — the process where plants take in carbon dioxide and uses water and the sun’s energy to create glucose and oxygen.
According to the study, published Friday, some crops — like rice and wheat — produce toxic by-products during photosynthesis, which can reduce efficiency. During this process, called “photorespiration,” an enzyme called Rubisco occasionally makes a “mistake” in the process of converting carbon dioxide that causes it to “grab” an oxygen molecule instead of a carbon dioxide molecule.
This is essentially an “anti-photosynthesis,” said Donald Ort, one of the study’s authors and Robert Emerson professor of plant biology and crop sciences at the University of Illinois.
Photosynthesis efficiency can be reduced by 20-50% because of this process, according to the study.
The higher the temperature plants grow in, the more this “anti-photosynthesis” occurs — because the plant’s enzymes are less able to determine between carbon dioxide and oxygen molecules. This means plants in countries like Africa and Southeast Asia will suffer more from this process, Ort said.
In one of the tested pathways, scientists were able to create “shortcuts” in the photosynthesis pathway that allowed the unproductive by-products of photosynthesis to be recaptured, meaning less energy was lost and the plants were up to 40% more productive than wild-grown tobacco plants.
Because plants in warmer temperatures are affected more by the “anti-photosynthesis,” the affects of the engineering would likely be greater and could potentially produce even higher outcomes.
This efficiency may vary across different crops, but scientists are working now to see how the process affects plants including cowpea, rice, soybean, and wheat.
The engineering would not help the three plants that have a different kind of photosynthetic metabolism called C4 — which includes corn, sugarcane, and sorghum. Most plants would see a productivity increase, though, Ort said.
However, it could be 12-14 years before this engineering is introduced in seeds for farmers to use due the time the “breeding cycle” takes.
When introduced, the engineering would be implemented into seed gems that have already been “optimized” for things like roundup tolerance, or disease resistance to further improve production of crops that have already been engineered to be more productive.
Although it is still difficult to determine the exact outputs of the engineering in terms of crop productivity, Ort said scientists’ estimates said at a 5% increase in productivity, 200 million people could be fed.
At the UN’s estimates for the world population increase to be 9.8 billion by 2050, Ort said that puts the need for the production increase at 2-3 breeding cycles from now.
“To meet the agricultural demand, we will need to increase worldwide [crop] production by 80-100 percent,” Ort said.
“There’s really some urgency to do this.”