How to Make Stress Resistant Crops: Ask Desert Plants

Scientists from the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom are investigating how a desert plant could be used to develop crops resistant to abiotic stresses. The desert plant Kalanchoe fedtschenkoi, unlike most crop plants, employs an elaborate carbon fixation pathway to make its food. It captures most of its carbon dioxide at night when the air is cooler and more humid, making it 10 times more efficient than wheat or rice. Plants thriving in arid conditions have developed this strategy particularly to conserve water. Keeping their stomata (point of carbon dioxide entry) closed during the hottest and driest part of the day reduces the loss of water through evapotranspiration.

Scientists will use the latest DNA sequencing methods to analyze the plant’s genetic code and understand how these plants function at night. The novel genes that might be found in Kalanchoe may also provide a model of how biofuel plants could be grown on semi-arid and marginal lands, rather than on fertile farmland needed for producing food.

For more information, visit http://www.liv.ac.uk/news/press_releases/2008/06/desert_plants1.htm