C4 Rice’s First Wobbly Steps Towards Reality
6th December 2020
“We assembled five genes from maize that code for five enzymes in the C4 photosynthetic pathway into a single gene construct and installed it into rice plants,” said lead author Dr. Maria Ermakova, who works at The Australian National University (ANU), as part of the international C4 Rice Project, led by Oxford University.
Rice, one of the main world food staples, uses the less efficient C3 photosynthetic pathway. Scientists predict that the introduction of the more efficient C4 photosynthesis traits into rice can potentially increase photosynthetic efficiency by fifty percent, improve nitrogen use efficiency and double water use efficiency.
December 6th, 2020 at 14:46
Cue screaming about “Frankenfood” from the usual suspects.
December 7th, 2020 at 11:05
Did rice-dependent countries’ ruling classes ever get over their aversion to golden rice? If not, good luck with selling this stuff, no matter how good it might be.