Genetics may lie at the heart of crop yield limitation

Comparison of growth differences in wild-type (left) and growth-repressor mutant (right) Arabidopsis plants. Credit: Dr Nick Pullen

“This could have potentially big implications for the agricultural industry,” says Dr Pullen, “Our model plant is in the same family as cabbages, so it's easy to imagine creating giant cabbages or growing them to the desired market size faster than at present.”

It was previously assumed that plant growth was generally resource-limited, meaning that plants would only grow as large and fast as they could photosynthesise.

However, Dr Pullen and his team present evidence that plant growth is actually “sink-limited”, meaning that genetic regulation and cell division rates have a much bigger role in controlling plant growth than previously thought:

“We are proposing that plant growth is not physically limited by Net Primary Productivity (NPP) or the environment, but instead is limited genetically in response to these signals to ensure they do not become limiting.”

By genetically altering the growth repressors in Arabidopsis, Dr Pullen and his team were able to create mutant strains. They identified the metabolic rates of the different plant strains by measuring rates of photosynthesis and respiration, as well as comparing the size and weight of the plants to monitor differences in physical growth.

Dr Pullen and the team also grew the mutant plant strains at different temperatures to see if this changed their results: “When grown at different temperatures we still find a difference in size of our plants between wildtype and the mutants. This suggests our results should be applicable in different climates.”

The impact of these results is wide-reaching, and Dr Pullen suggests that it may even change how we think about global climate data: “Climate models need to incorporate genetic elements because at present most do not, and their predictions would be much improved with a better understanding of plant carbon demand.”

Media Contact

Alex Evans
bs09ane@leeds.ac.uk
44-752-775-4615

http://www.sebiology.org 

Media Contact

Alex Evans EurekAlert!

All latest news from the category: Life Sciences and Chemistry

Articles and reports from the Life Sciences and chemistry area deal with applied and basic research into modern biology, chemistry and human medicine.

Valuable information can be found on a range of life sciences fields including bacteriology, biochemistry, bionics, bioinformatics, biophysics, biotechnology, genetics, geobotany, human biology, marine biology, microbiology, molecular biology, cellular biology, zoology, bioinorganic chemistry, microchemistry and environmental chemistry.

Back to home

Comments (0)

Write a comment

Newest articles

Lighting up the future

New multidisciplinary research from the University of St Andrews could lead to more efficient televisions, computer screens and lighting. Researchers at the Organic Semiconductor Centre in the School of Physics and…

Researchers crack sugarcane’s complex genetic code

Sweet success: Scientists created a highly accurate reference genome for one of the most important modern crops and found a rare example of how genes confer disease resistance in plants….

Evolution of the most powerful ocean current on Earth

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current plays an important part in global overturning circulation, the exchange of heat and CO2 between the ocean and atmosphere, and the stability of Antarctica’s ice sheets….

Partners & Sponsors