A new photosynthesis discovery at The University of Queensland may help breed faster-growing wheat crops that are better adapted to hotter, drier climates.
A research team led by Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation researcher Professor Robert Henry has today published a paper in Scientific Reports, showing that photosynthesis occurs in wheat seeds as well as in plant leaves.
"This discovery turns half a century of plant biology on its head," Professor Henry said.
"Wheat covers more of the earth than any other crop, so the ramifications of this discovery could be huge. It may lead to better, faster-growing, better-yielding wheat crops in geographical areas where wheat currently cannot be grown."
A new photosynthesis discovery at The University of Queensland may help breed faster-growing wheat crops that are better adapted to hotter, drier climates.
A research team led by Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation researcher Professor Robert Henry has today published a paper in Scientific Reports, showing that photosynthesis occurs in wheat seeds as well as in plant leaves.
"This discovery turns half a century of plant biology on its head," Professor Henry said.
"Wheat covers more of the earth than any other crop, so the ramifications of this discovery could be huge. It may lead to better, faster-growing, better-yielding wheat crops in geographical areas where wheat currently cannot be grown."
Professor Henry said the work built on a biological discovery in the 1960s at the old Colonial Sugar Refining Company in Brisbane.
"Many said that discovery should have won a Nobel Prize," he said.
"The Brisbane researchers at that time demonstrated that sugarcane and some other tropically adapted plants had evolved a different photosynthesis pathway than that seen in around 85 per cent of plants."
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