Plants With Enhanced Drought Resistance Without Compromising Growth

It is clear that climate change is occurring and effecting many different things in our lives. Well, extreme drought is only one of those effects that is already being seen as a decrease in rainfall and abnormally warm temperatures in Europe are causing the death of crops. Drought is seen as one of the biggest problems toward agriculture today. In order to withstand these conditions, the Center for Research in Agriculture Genomics (CRAG) led by Ana Cano- Delgado are modifying the signaling of the plant steroid hormone, called brassinoseroids. By doing this, it will increase hydric stress resistance without effecting how the plant will grow. This discovery was made with only a small plant called Arabidopsis thaliana, but the team who led this research is using what they found to apply the strategy in plants that would be used in agriculture. 

This is happening in California as well. California has been in a drought for years now, and research done by the UC Riverside plant- cell biologists have included the insertion of a new piece of genetic code into tomato crops that "trick" the plant. It keeps the stomata closed, keeping the plant from losing water. These genetically modified plants were able to go twelve days without being re-watered.   Corn crops are being modified, rice in Japan is being modified, etc. I strongly believe that as climate change continues to be a problem, technology has to step in and play an important role; especially if our population continues to increase as it does. Creating these drought resistant plants that don't alter the plants identity, growth, and is allowing for farmers to keeping producing them is a positive thing. The research should continue because at this point I don't see the climate or population issue getting any better, so we need to depend on science. 

Genetically Modifying Plants for Efficient Food Production

Agricultural scientists at the University of Illinois have modified plant genes by allowing them to use sunlight more efficiently. Dr. Stephen P. Long, the lead author of the study, is a professor of crop sciences at the University of Illinois, and is a leading figure in crop science/photosynthesis research. Dr. Long and his team of scientists used genetic engineering techniques to alter photosynthesis in tobacco plants. Their study, published by the journal Science, found a 20% increase in biomass compared to wild-type plants grown in the same field environment. They used tobacco because it is easy to manipulate when trying new genetic alterations, and they hope food crops will also be as successful.

Check out the Science Magazine video on Youtube!

The point of the study was to improve a plant’s recovery time from photoprotection after light stress.  It allows for a plant to release some of that absorbed energy as heat so that they can efficiently use the carbon dioxide available from their environment. Think of it as photosynthesis on steroids, and photosynthesis is how plants convert sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into new, energy-rich carbohydrates, also known as a majority of our food sources. Dr. Long has long argued that the process is inefficient because it uses less than one percent of the energy that’s available to them. His team of scientists were able to increase leaf growth between 14 and 20 percent by genetically modifying part of a plant's protective system that is activated when in the presence of excessive sunlight. Generally, plants don’t take the optimal amount of energy available to them, and it takes ten minutes to an hour for a plant to adjust its protective system.  Dr. Long and his team have genetically modified the plant to turn that protection system off and on faster.

"Now that we know it works, it won't be too difficult to do it with other crops," said Dr. Long, a professor of crop sciences at the University of Illinois. "If you look at crops around the world, it would (increase yield) many million tons of food.” 

“A plant's protective system is like a pressure relief valve in a steam engine. When there's too much sunlight, it turns on and gets rid of excess energy safely. When the plant is in the shade, the protective system turns off, but not quickly, said study co-author Krishna Niyogi, a plant scientist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the University of California, Berkeley.

This is the first time scientists have been able to do something like this, and it is an amazing step towards solving world hunger.  Hopefully the public's collective fear of GMO’s won't keep this breakthrough from being utilized. All the awesome science in the world can be crippled by the rejection of consumers.  The breakthrough could eventually dramatically increase the amount of food that can be grown in the world. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are in support of this technology and they hope it might help alleviate global poverty.

It can also be argued that plants don’t have a “glitch” that needs fixing, and that people shouldn't fix what’s not broken. Speeding up a naturally occurring process can be considered to be detrimental towards progress.  When you haste, you waste. The conservative approach may indeed be best for a plant’s offspring, but what is best for the plant is not the same as is what is best for the farmer.

Pineapple genome offers insight into drought-tolerant plants

 

The production of pineapples began in 

southwest Brazil and northeast Paraguay. Pineapples have been cultivated by humans for more than six-thousand years and are now produced in more than eighty-five countries. In a recent study, scientists are homing in on the genes and the genetic pathways which allow the pineapple plant to prosper in environments that are water-limited by sequencing the juicy plant’s genome. Similar to many plants, the ancestors of pineapple and grasses experienced several doublings of their genomes. Although, the analysis shows that unlike the grasses that share an ancestor with pineapple, the pineapple genome has one-less whole genome duplication. This information indicated that pineapple plant is the best comparison group for the study of cereal crop genomes. Overall, the findings provided evidence of two-whole genome duplications in the pineapple plant’s history and a new opening on the evolutionary history of grasses. 

A majority of crop plants make use of a type of photosynthesis called C3. The juicy pineapple plant uses a special type of photosynthesis, called crassulacean acid metabolism, also known as CAM. CAM has evolved in more than ten-thousand plant species independently and the pineapple plant is valued the most economically out of all ten-thousand. Biology professor Ray Ming states “CAM plants use only 20 percent of the water used by typical C3 crop plants, and CAM plants can grow in dry, marginal lands that are unsuited for most crop plants.” By looking more closely at the pineapple genome, it was revealed that some genes which contribute to CAM photosynthesis are actually regulated by the plants circadian clock genes. Circadian clock genes allow plants to distinguish between day and night and alter their metabolism as a result. 

This study allowed scientists to find a link among regulatory elements of CAM photosynthesis genes and the circadian clock regulation for the first time. “CAM photosynthesis allows plants to close the pores in their leaves during the day and open them at night,” states Professor Ming, illustrating how that contributes to the pineapple plant’s resilience in hot climates and that the plant loses very little moisture through its leaves during the course of the day. CAM plants greatly reduce water loss by keeping their stomata closed during the day.

The team involved in this study wrote “All plants contain the necessary genes for CAM photosynthesis and the evolution of CAM simply required rerouting of pre-existing pathways.” The team is responsible for the discovering in which CAM photosynthesis evolved by reconfiguring molecular pathways involved in C3 and CAM photosynthesis. 

Having many farmers within the family and understanding how devastating a drought can be for the crops and overall production for that year, this article was attention-grabbing. The scientists now look to use their understanding of the evolution of the different types of photosynthesis in effort to develop drought-tolerant crops. “Higher water-use efficiency is a highly desirable trait, given the need to double food production by 2050 in the context of a changing climate,” stated Ray Ming. Furthermore, the adaptation of food crops to be more tolerant of a drought will also help humans become accustomed to climate change. 

Original Article