Researchers Find a Way to Expedite Photosynthesis

Researchers from uni­ver­si­ties in the United States and the United Kingdom have devel­oped a way to make pho­to­syn­the­sis more effi­cient in soy­beans.

After more than a decade of work, sci­en­tists from the University of Ilinois and the University of Lancaster tack­led what they had pre­vi­ously iden­ti­fied as one of the least effi­cient aspects of pho­to­syn­the­sis.

Typically, plants absorb the energy from sun­light and turn it into car­bon diox­ide. They also use water and min­er­als absorbed from the soil to cre­ate sug­ars that cre­ate growth.

However, in very bright sun­light, plants release excess energy as heat to pro­tect their cells from being dam­aged. This process of shift­ing from the so-called ​“fully pro­duc­tive growth mode” to the ​“pro­tec­tive mode” takes sev­eral min­utes, result­ing in a nat­ural loss of effi­ciency.

By tweak­ing the genes respon­si­ble for this pro­tec­tive func­tion of the plant, the researchers were able to expe­dite the process, which resulted in a 20 per­cent increase in yield for the soy­bean plants.

“This jump in the yield is huge by com­par­i­son to the improve­ments we get through plant breed­ing,” Stephen Long, an agri­cul­tural sci­en­tist who works at both uni­ver­si­ties, told the BBC. ​“And the process we’ve tack­led is uni­ver­sal, so the fact we have it work­ing in a food crop gives us a lot of con­fi­dence that this should work in wheat, maize and rice.”

The effi­ciency of pho­to­syn­the­sis in olive trees could also be improved using a sim­i­lar method, though sta­ple crops are the main focus of the research.

Long added that the crops could be grow­ing in fields within 10 years, but laws regard­ing the cul­ti­va­tion of genet­i­cally-mod­i­fied crops would likely impact how quickly and where these crops could be intro­duced.

The results of this exper­i­ment have come at an incred­i­bly timely moment as con­cern mounts about global food short­ages cre­ated by drought, con­flict and sup­ply chain issues.

A recent report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations found that nearly 10 per­cent of the global pop­u­la­tion was hun­gry in 2021. The report added that the sit­u­a­tion has been get­ting worse in recent years.

According to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (Unicef), more than 660 mil­lion peo­ple will face mal­nu­tri­tion and food inse­cu­rity by 2030.

The sci­en­tists behind this research hope it will help the world’s poor­est farm­ers have more pro­duc­tive har­vests and bol­ster food pro­duc­tion in the areas where it is most needed.

“The num­ber of peo­ple affected by food insuf­fi­ciency con­tin­ues to grow, and pro­jec­tions clearly show that there needs to be a change at the food sup­ply level to change the tra­jec­tory,” said Amanda De Souza, the study’s lead author.

“Our research shows an effec­tive way to con­tribute to food secu­rity for the peo­ple who need it most while avoid­ing more land being put into pro­duc­tion,” she con­cluded. ​“Improving pho­to­syn­the­sis is a major oppor­tu­nity to gain the needed jump in yield poten­tial.”

• BBC
• Phys.org