Biotechnology That Makes Plants More Efficient?

Biotechnology in crop production has been used for a little more than 20 years. Gene manipulation to this point has been used to protect crops from insects and to tolerate herbicides to better control weeds. It has been very controversial, but it seems like maybe consumers are becoming more accepting of biotechnology, at least in the United States. Some still believe that it is wrong to manipulate genes even though plant breeders have been doing it for a long time using traditional plant breeding. I read an article on the website agweb.com that really caught my attention. Biotechnology now may be used to make plants use sunlight more efficiently!

Scientists at the University of Illinois have genetically modified how a plant converts carbon dioxide, water and sunlight into food. It was described as photosynthesis on steroids. Plants use only about 1 percent of available sunlight. When more sunlight is available than the plant can use, a protective system kicks in and releases the extra sunlight. It has been described as a like pressure relief valve on a boiler. When it is cloudy, the protective system shuts down to make more sunlight available to the plant.

The issue is when the plant can use more sunlight the protective system releasing the sunlight does not shut down quickly. Scientists genetically modified the plant to get the protective system to turn on and off more quickly. The result was a 14 percent to 20 percent increase in leaf growth. This research was done on tobacco because it is easy to manipulate the genetics. However, scientists feel it can be applied to corn and other crops.

Stephen Long, professor of crop sciences at the University of Illinois, was the lead researcher. He said it may be 15 years before this biotechnology will be implemented. However, this is the first time scientists have been able to accomplish something like this.