AgriTech News Issue 4 23 July 2019

Research Results

1. Enhancing Crop Yields Under Salinity Conditions

Of the Earth’s estimated 400,000 plant species, almost 300,000 are edible. Of those, just about 30 crop species provide food for about 90% of the world’s population, with a mere 4 of those crops being predominant. Saline soil conditions increasingly provide a challenge for food crop production, and efforts are needed to improve both soil conditions and crop tolerance to saline soils.The authors of this review provide an overview of the processes that limit growth and yield in saline conditions. For example, in many crops, yield is reduced if soil salinity surpasses crop‐specific thresholds. An understanding of the links between physiological processes and saline tolerance, with their effects on crop yield, would help in improving our crops for growing them in saline environments.The physiological complexity of the salinity syndrome and the underlying polygenic tolerance mechanisms imply that only a limited improvement in yield on saline soils may be achieved through single gene transfer (the ‘silver bullet approach’ advocated by molecular breeders). Real progress can be achieved only via a more complex route, by slow pyramiding of essential physiological traits.

This approach needs to be explored further to enable farmers to use saline soils to grow food and other crops more efficiently.

For more, go to https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/plb.12884

2. Conservationists Find Protected Areas (PAs) are Shrinking Worldwide

A large international team of researchers (Rachel E. Golden Kroner et al.) reports that the amount of land designated as protected areas (PAs)is shrinking globally. The team also notes that not all the land thus lost poses a threat to biodiversity.

During the last few centuries (there were also such attempts in earlier times), many countries and national leaders have set aside land under their jurisdiction, specifically to prevent it from destruction by human activities. However, as noted by the authors, governments are also free to remove such restrictions if there is pressure for a different use of the land or water body. About 78% of such land downgrading has occurred over just the past 20 years, they note, with extractive industries seen as particularly damaging. They suggest that local entities should be the ones making land protection decisions rather than remote entities, allowing more thoughtful management of valuable land. Those efforts would help in better conservation of ecosystem and biodiversity.

For more, go to https://phys.org/news/2019-05-conservationists-areas-worldwide.html

3. Heat, more than drought, will cause lower crop yields, researchers say

We all know that agriculture is highly dependent on the climate. Increases in temperature and carbon dioxide can increase some crop yields in some places if nutrient levels, soil moisture, water availability, and other conditions are met. Overall, climate change would make it more difficult to grow crops in many places. Ariel Ortiz-Bobea et al. of Cornell University note that the heat stress induced by climate change will play a larger role than drought stress in reducing the yields of several major U.S. crops during the later part of this century. This finding has major implications for crop management, as well as plant breeding. Its implications for a warming globe also increase the urgency to identify technologies that develop crops/varieties resilient to a changing climate.

For more, go to https://phys.org/news/2019-06-drought-crop-yields.html?utm_source=nwletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-nwletter

and

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab1e75/pdf

 

4. Scientists discover gene that could help us grow crops faster

Crop improvement scientists worldwide are working on diverse strategies to sustainably increase crop yields. Increasing the efficiency of how plants transport sugars, proteins, and other organic nutrients within the plant is one of the approaches that could contribute to the next Green Revolution. Professor Yrjö Helariutta’s research team at the Sainsbury Laboratory, Cambridge University (SLCU) and Dr. Emmanuelle Bayer’s team at the University of Bordeaux/CNRS have discovered the ‘Phloem Unloading Modulator (PLM)’, a novel gene which affects nutrient trafficking by altering the channels connecting neighbouring plant cells, called plasmodesmata, that enable the transfer of essential substances. They hope that this gene could be used to widen a nutrient trafficking bottleneck and potentially increase crop yields. Of course, there are still many questions to be answered; for example, how and why plasmodesmata that lack cytoplasmic sleeves have higher rates of trafficking and how the metabolism of sphingolipids is mechanistically related to the function of PLM? And most importantly, how common is the system in plants in general?

For more, go to https://phys.org/news/2019-06-scientists-gene-crops-faster.html?utm_source=nwletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-nwletter

 

Potential Crops/Technologies

1. A bean for all seasons?

Biology professor and researcher Dr Christopher Cullis at the Case Western Reserve University, USA, and partners at universities from three African countries believe they have identified a bean with a high potential for the future. They think that the marama bean plant (Tylosema esculentum), now considered an ‘orphan legume,’ could be cultivated on a large scale to supplement the food needs of a few African countries with arid climates. It is a long-lived perennial growing to about 3 metres, in a prostrate or trailing form, with forked tendrils that facilitate climbing. It tolerates drought very well, helped by a large tuber (usually 10-12 kg, but 200-kg tubers have been recorded in Botswana). In addition to its use as a food supplement, marama bean could provide additional income to farmers through the sale of its oils, and its oversized tuber root could provide an alternative starch for baked goods.

These efforts to make marama bean plant more widely cultivable will contribute to agricultural diversification, and to improved nutrition and food supply.

For more, go to https://phys.org/news/2019-06-bean-seasons.html?utm_source=nwletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-nwletter

2. Beyond gene/genome editing

SHERLOCK technology is a new CRISPR-based platform, which is not only rapid but also a portable method that enables detection and quantification of plant genes with minimal amount of crude extract plant nucleic acid sample. This technology can support a variety of agricultural applications, report Feng Zhang, from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard (Cambridge, MA) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge), and co-authors Omar Abudayyeh, Jonathan Gootenberg, and Max Kellner, from the Broad Institute, MIT, and Harvard Medical School (Boston, MA). The platform overcomes many of the limitations of current nucleic acid detection systems, and it provides single-molecule sensitivity and single-nucleotide specificity, with high multiplexing capability. This refined CRISPR-based tool was applied for the first time in plants, and it can help in the rapid detection of pathogens or pests and in plant breeding.

For more, go to https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-06/mali-bir062419.php

Note: Full text article on The CRISPR Journal website through July 24, 2019.

News

1. Precision agriculture is reaching new heights

Drones have been used in agriculture for some time now. Most recently, sophisticated analytics and software have combined with evolved drone solutions to allow for new breakthroughs. A French drone solution company, Delair, and Phenome Networks, a plant breeding software company, have developed a joint solution to accelerate plant breeding programmes, which is being highlighted as a first-of-its-kind partnership. The planned effort will combine research information management software solutions with new-generation drone systems and aerial imagery analytics to strengthen the capabilities of seed companies.Tracking and tracing the wealth of data generated by the plant breeding process represents a challenge in crop research. The new technology is expected to help in collecting large-scale, field-based plant phenotypic data, with sufficient resolution and accuracy in a reproducible and non-invasive manner.

For more, go to https://dronelife.com/2019/05/29/precision-ag-reaches-new-heights-accelerating-plant-breeding-and-variety-testing-with-drone-data/

Events

Is India doing enough to battle desertification?

About one-third of India’s total land is facing degradation, eventually leading to desertification. A series of programmes to address the problem have been carried out, and India has committed to restoring 21 million hectares by 2030. Experts believe, however, that a lot more needs to be done, especially in the context of agriculture, deforestation, and urbanisation. In August-September 2019, India is hosting a global conference of countries that are party to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). Representatives from nearly 197 countries are expected to participate.

For more, go to https://india.mongabay.com/2019/06/is-india-doing-enough-to-battle-desertification/

and

https://www.unccd.int/conventionconference-parties-cop/unccd-cop14-new-delhi-india