Plant scientists at the universities of Cambridge, UK and Bordeaux, France, have discovered a gene they hope can be used to wide a nutrient bottleneck, and potentially increase crop yields.
This is an objective of research around the world that aims to increase crop yields through improving the efficiency of how plants move sugars, proteins and nutrients around different parts of the plant.
The gene, known as Phloem Unloading Modulator (PLM), affects nutrient movement by altering the channels connecting the neighbouring plant cells, so-called plasmodesmata.
Plasmodesmata are described as ‘nanoscale membrane-lined channels that traverse the cell wall barrier to link plant cells together and through which essential substances can travel’.
This movement of organic nutrients and signals via the plasmodesmata is said to have an important role in plant growth and development, as well as disease and stress resistance.
“We found that mutating PLM relieves a trafficking bottleneck that was previously reducing the outward movement of nutrients from the vascular system to the rapidly growing tissues in plant roots,” said Dr Dawei Yan, lead author from Cambridge’s Sainsbury Laboratory in the UK.
The study showed that Arabidopsis thaliana test plants, modified to inactivate the PLM gene, released more substances from the phloem (a specialised tissue for long-distance transport) at the tips of their roots.
Scientists found the PLM gene was having a clear controlling effect on the amount of phloem unloading meant roots in the test plants grew faster and longer.
“This research has advanced our understanding of the factors regulating plant nutrient transport. There is an urgent need to develop crops with increased nutrient efficiency, both to recued fertiliser use and to increase crop yields,” said Professor Yrjo Helariutta from the research team at Sainsbury Laboratory. Cambridge University.
“We may eventually be able to use this nutrient transport information to more efficiently partition nutrients between various organs and direct nutrients from stems and leaves to fruit and storage organs,” he said of the research published in Nature Plants in June 2019.
Barley trials
Switzerland’s Federal Office for the Environment has granted the University of Zurich permission to undertake field trials of genetically modified barley in which a wheat resistance gene to fungal diseases was introduced.
Researchers aim to determine whether the gene modification can protect corn and barely from fungal diseases, such as barley leaf rust and powdery mildew, and how it impacts crop development and yield. The experiment will take place over five seasons until 2023.
Commercial production of GM crops in Switzerland is prohibited by a moratorium that has two more years to run.
Vital technology
Biotechnology was included on a list of 10 technologies vital to feeding the world’s growing population – without destroying it – in a report released by the World Resources Institute, the World Bank, UN Environment Program and UN Development Program.
The reporter asks: “How can the world feed nearly 10 billion people by 2050 while also advancing economic development, protecting and restoring forests, and stabilising the climate?”
To help close the gap between the food available today and what’s needed in just over a generation’s time (without clearing land for farming and while reducing greenhouse gas emissions) the report offers 22 solutions. These include:
- reduce growth in demand;
- increase food production without expanding agricultural land;
- increase the fish supply;
- reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural production;
- protect and restore natural ecosystems.
Examples of innovations needing faster and far-reaching uptake in the report, which relate to biotechnologies are:
- reducing waste between the ‘farm and the fork’;
- reducing methane emissions from agricultural practices;
- more efficient nitrogen use;
- boosting crop yields through genetic advancements;
- faster breeding technologies;
- reducing pressure on wild fish stocks.
The Agricultural Biotechnology Council of Australia (ABCA) is an industry initiative established in increase public awareness of, and encourage informed debate and decision making about, gene technology.
More information: ABCA.