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Wolffia, also known as duckweed, is the fastest-growing plant known, but the genetics underlying the strange little plant’s success have long been a mystery to scientists. Now, thanks to advances in genome sequencing, researchers are learning what makes the plant unique and, in the process, are discovering some fundamental principles of plant biology and growth.
An effort led by scientists from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla is providing new findings about the plant’s genome that explain how it’s able to grow so fast.
The research, published in the February issue of
Genome Research, will help scientists understand how plants make trade-offs between growth and other functions, such as putting down roots and defending themselves from pests.
Credit: Salk Institute
LA JOLLA (February 1, 2021)
Wolffia, also known as duckweed, is the fastest-growing plant known, but the genetics underlying this strange little plant s success have long been a mystery to scientists. Now, thanks to advances in genome sequencing, researchers are learning what makes this plant unique and, in the process, discovering some fundamental principles of plant biology and growth.
A multi-investigator effort led by scientists from the Salk Institute is reporting new findings about the plant s genome that explain how it s able to grow so fast. The research, published in the February 2021 issue of
Genome Research, will help scientists to understand how plants make trade-offs between growth and other functions, such as putting down roots and defending themselves from pests. This research has implications for designing entirely new plants that are optimized for specific functions, such as increased carbon storage to help address climate change.
Researchers are supercharging crops in hopes to save the planet from climate change
By: Amanda Brandeis
and last updated 2020-12-15 16:56:10-05
SAN DIEGO, Calif. â Scientists are harnessing a not-so-secret weapon in the fight against climate change: plants.
âPlants are very good at one thing and that is to catch carbon dioxide out of the air and using the power of the sunlight to fix it to make into bio-materials, said Wolfgang Busch.
A plant scientist and professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, Busch is co-director of the Harnessing Plants Initiative (HPI). Plants are superheroes, said Busch. âThey can do what nothing else can do, no technical solution at that scale, to catch a lot of carbon dioxide and fix it.â
(Credit: Pixabay)
Sempra Energy and the Salk Institute today announced a new project to advance plant-based carbon capture and sequestration research, education, and implementation to help address the climate crisis. Sempra Energy is donating $2 million to the Salk Institute to help fund the five-year project.
According to the Salk Institute, this project has the potential to help remove significant amounts of carbon from entering our atmosphere and aligns with Sempra Energy’s portfolio to advance the global energy transition to lower-carbon energy sources.
Sempra Energy will be the lead sponsor of the Salk Institute’s “Sequestering Carbon Through Climate Adapted Sorghum” project, part of the Institute’s Harnessing Plants Initiative (HPI). HPI is an approach to fight climate change by optimizing a plant’s natural ability to capture and store carbon and adapt to diverse climate conditions. Salk researchers aim to develop these Salk Ideal Plants to mitigate the disastr