Essay by Eric Worrall
According to the Innovative Genomics Institute, genetically engineering to make rice plants more vigorous with deeper roots can hold more CO2.
How CRISPR rice can help cope with climate change
Gene-edited rice can better retain carbon dioxide
Via Justine Calma@justcalma June 22, 2022, 5:32 p.m. EDT
Can CRISPR gene-editing technology create new crops that help fight climate change as they grow? That’s what a group of researchers hope to do with $11 million in funding from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. The grant will go towards efforts to improve plants – starting with rice plants – and the soil so that they better capture carbon dioxide. Effort, announced last weekis being led by the Innovative Genomics Institute, founded by Nobel Prize Winners and CRISPR co-inventor Jennifer Doudna.
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CRISPR can be used to make precise changes in the plant genome to produce desirable traits. There are three goals for gene editing in IGI’s carbon-removal mission. It starts with trying to make plants photosynthesize more efficiently so that they take in as much CO2 as possible. Second, IGI is interested in growing plants with longer roots. Plants transfer carbon to the soil through their roots (as well as from the rest of their bodies when they die). Longer roots can deposit carbon deeper into the soil so that it doesn’t spread easily into the atmosphere again. A similar effort to influence plant genes and develop plants with stronger roots is underway at the Salk Institute for Biological Research, which has received $30 million from Bezos Earth Fund in 2020.
That brings us to the third branch of IGI’s research: enhancing the storage capacity of soil, rather than releasing greenhouse gases. Soil does not normally hold carbon for long. It escapes back into the atmosphere through respiration by soil microorganisms as they break down plant matter. And techniques used in modern agriculture, like tilling, speed up this process and allow the soil to lose more carbon. One potential outcome of IGI’s CRISPR study, according to Ringeisen, is a product that can be added to the soil to feed a soil microbiome that is able to hold carbon for longer.
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Read more: https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/22/23178791/crispr-gene-editing-rice-soil-climate-change
Honestly, the biggest problem will be convincing farmers to plant new GM rice.
Farmers in most places are eager to adopt new GM varieties to increase yields and profits, but will deeper roots and more carbon trapping help boost yields? Unless photosynthesis is further improved to compensate for having to plant more useless tissue, such as a deeper root system than is needed to help hold more carbon, the new CRISPR climate rice will on the shelf.
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