General, Research, Technology

Invented a way to grow any plants in cold conditions

In 2019, British and Austrian scientistsfound that a gradual increase in the temperature of our planet can significantly reduce the yield of some crops. Menopausal changes can especially affect corn, so it would be nice if it grew in as many regions of the Earth as possible. However, this plant, like many other crops, does not tolerate low temperatures and rarely enjoys a large crop in cold conditions. However, American scientists dared to suggest that by increasing the production of one natural enzyme in corn, one can teach a plant to survive and produce a large crop in almost any environment.

In the future, corn can be grown even in cold conditions.

About the idea of ​​a group of scientists led by a professorDavid Stern was written in the scientific publication Plant Biotechnology Journal. For a long time they studied the role of the natural enzyme ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase (RuBisCO) in plant life and found out one interesting detail. It turned out that the more this enzyme is contained in plants, the more they grow and develop faster. Based on this, scientists had the assumption that forcing corn to produce more of this substance, they would be able to teach it to grow even in cold conditions.

See also: 5 common myths about corn

How to accelerate plant growth?

To check if sustainability can be improvedcorn to cold by increasing the concentration of RuBisCO in it, scientists conducted an experiment. By editing the plant’s genes, they created a maize variety that actually produces more of the aforementioned substance than usual. The created plant was planted next to ordinary corn in a container with a variable temperature. First, the plants were grown for three weeks at 25 degrees Celsius, but then the temperature was reduced to 14 degrees for two weeks and raised again to its original level.

The perfect corn cob should look something like this

Scientists explained this by the fact that in this way theyrecreated the conditions under which corn is planted in relatively warm weather and undergoes a cold period. Usually, if corn undergoes such temperature fluctuations, plant growth slows down significantly and you can not expect a good yield from it. However, the maize variety rich in RuBisCO enzyme quickly recovered after a temperature drop and, in contrast to control plants, yielded a good harvest.

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It follows from this that increasing the concentration of everythingone enzyme, scientists may well create varieties of plants that perfectly adapt to cold conditions. Only now, scientists do not know exactly what crops can be subjected to such changes. To do this, you need to conduct other studies, only the authors of the work are not going to conduct them, at least in the near future. Instead, they want to make corn give stronger cobs in cold conditions, because the result did not fully suit them.

In general, according to scientists from the Max InstitutePlank, future global warming could destroy most of Europe’s plants. The worst thing is that this process has already begun and how the temperature increase will affect the plants can be read in our special material.