Scientists identify protein which boosts rice yield by fifty percent

Rice is a major crop, feeding almost 50 percent of the world’s population and has retained the ability to survive in changing environmental conditions. The crop is able to thrive in flooded paddy fields — where the soggy, anaerobic conditions favour the availability of ammonium — as well as in much drier, drained soil, where increased oxygen means more nitrate is available. nitrogen fertilizer is a major cost in growing many cereal crops and its overuse has a negative environmental impact.

The nitrogen that all plants need to grow is typically available in the form of nitrate or ammonium ions in the soil, which are taken up by the plant roots. For the plant, getting the right balance of nitrate and ammonium is very important: too much ammonium and plant cells become alkaline; too much nitrate and they become acidic. Either way, upsetting the pH balance means the plant’s enzymes do not work as well, affecting plant health and crop yield.

Together with the partners in Nanjing, China, Dr Miller’s team has been working out how rice plants can maintain pH under these changing environments.

Rice contains a gene called OsNRT2.3, which creates a protein involved in nitrate transport. This one gene makes two slightly different versions of the protein: OsNRT2.3a and OsNRT2.3b. Following tests to determine the role of both versions of the protein, Dr Miller’s team found that OsNRT2.3b is able to switch nitrate transport on or off, depending on the internal pH of the plant cell.

When this ‘b’ protein was overexpressed in rice plants they were better able to buffer themselves against pH changes in their environment. This enabled them to take up much more nitrogen, as well as more iron and phosphorus. These rice plants gave a much higher yield of rice grain (up to 54 percent more yield), and their nitrogen use efficiency increased by up to 40 percent.

Dr Miller said, “Now that we know this particular protein found in rice plants can greatly increase nitrogen efficiency and yields, we can begin to produce new varieties of rice and other crops. These findings bring us a significant step closer to being able to produce more of the world’s food with a lower environmental impact.”

This new technology has been patented by PBL, the John Innes Centre’s innovation management company, and has already been licensed to 3 different companies to develop new varieties of 6 different crop species.

This study, which will be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and grants from the Chinese Government.

Story Source:

The above post is reprinted from materials provided by John Innes Centre. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Science Daily

37 Comments on "Scientists identify protein which boosts rice yield by fifty percent"

steveo on Wed, 8th Jun 2016 1:12 pm 



“This enabled them to take up much more nitrogen, as well as more iron and phosphorus.”

Sounds like this rice will deplete the soil faster than normal rice, needing more chemical fertilizer.

Anonymous on Wed, 8th Jun 2016 3:13 pm 



Before you yell, YAY SCIENCE, as loud as you can. Read carefully.

In collaboration with researchers at Nanjing Agricultural University, Dr Tony Miller from the John Innes Centre has developed rice crops with an improved ability to manage their own pH levels, enabling them to take up significantly more nitrogen, iron and phosphorus from soil and increase yield by up to 54 percent.

Where exactly, will all the extra nitrogen, phosphorus iron etc, and even water, come from? The soil itself? LoL, no. It comes from artificial fertilizers, mostly derived from oil. Phosphorus is non-renewable,(like oil) at least at the scale we are currently using it up.

Iow, this fraken-rice, if deployed, would consume those resources FASTER, not less, and will stress the soil its grown in even more than it does currently. If natural selection needed rice to grow 50% faster than it does naturally, it would have done it for us on its own by now. Plants, like everything, have evolved to draw resources from the environment at a sustainable rate. Those that dont, go extinct when they consume so much the land wont support them anymore. I suspect, this will be the end fate of the super-(whatever> here as well. Not only will it suck the land of all available resources and go extinct, so will the idiots that designed the rice in first place. As always, the drive is not to live in any kind of balance, but simply to have more. More people, more farmland, more rice, more corn, more more more.

But hey, progress, right?

penury on Wed, 8th Jun 2016 5:03 pm 



The humans only concern is with more. To most U.S. citizens the word sustainability means “are the shelves at Wal Mart stocked yet.”

makati1 on Wed, 8th Jun 2016 7:42 pm 



Phosphorus is common in most soils and only requires the right pH to be assimilated into the plants. If the band of available P is widened, then existing P can be used by the plants. Not requiring more P, just unlocking what is already there, which is what this new plant does.

http://www.noble.org/Ag/Soils/PhosphorusBehavior/

As for fertilizer: “Bone meal and rock phosphate are typical sources. If you can find them, fish bone meal and soy husks are other good sources. And then there is compost. Composted yard waste and manures generally provide all the phosphorus normally required by most plants in most soils and if applied in excess, can create an oversupply.

Some food sources have pretty high levels of phosphorus naturally – banana peels, crab shells, shrimp peelings, most grains and nuts – and these should all be added to compost when available”

All you have to do is return the garbage to the land. Something not done much today.

A 50% boost in rice crops would end the food problem in Asia for a long time. They would have excess to export. Of course it will bother some here that this new plant is coming from China and not Monsanto. lol

HARM on Wed, 8th Jun 2016 7:46 pm 



Bad steveo & Anon!
Increasing rice yields through chemistry = WIN for BAU and overshoot. You should be CELEBRATING.

HARM on Wed, 8th Jun 2016 7:50 pm 



@makati1,

I’m sorry, have I missed something in my 5+ years visiting this site? Are there a lot of Monsanto cheerleaders here (or “Monsatan” as it’s more commonly known)?

sidzepp on Wed, 8th Jun 2016 8:15 pm 



Great news! Now we can increase the population by 50% quickly which in turn will mean new customers for Apple and Wally World. Now if we can only get them to increase grape harvests by 50% so we can enjoy the show.

Go Speed Racer on Wed, 8th Jun 2016 8:24 pm 



More starch to buy on SNAP cards. And fatten up the pigs for slaughter.

ghung on Wed, 8th Jun 2016 8:31 pm 



Humans may punch through 11 billion yet. God help the rest of the Earthings.

makati1 on Wed, 8th Jun 2016 8:43 pm 



ghung, I don’t think we have to worry about that. War is going to thin the herd before we can increase the numbers much. It seems to me that chaos and destruction is the future, not growth. The population growth is below replacement levels in the Ps now. Something like 1.87 per family. Thank education for that. Certainly not the Catholic Church.

makati1 on Wed, 8th Jun 2016 8:46 pm 



Oops! 1.72%. (WIKI) I need another coffee to stir up the brain cells.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Philippines

“The Philippines annualised population growth rate between the years 2010-2015 was 1.72%”

ghung on Wed, 8th Jun 2016 8:59 pm 



OK, Mak. But giving the world a few million tonnes of super rice every year can’t hurt. Moving right along it seems:
http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/
http://www.census.gov/popclock/

makati1 on Wed, 8th Jun 2016 9:07 pm 



Some will switch to rice when the wheat crops begin to fail significantly due to weather changes. And they will fail.

Take away the Us waste and the one billion meat cattle in the world and it could easily support 10B or more humans. I guess we will have to wait and see who is correct. Are you preparing for that day?

Davy on Wed, 8th Jun 2016 9:23 pm 



“Take away the Us waste and the one billion meat cattle in the world and it could easily support 10B or more humans. I guess we will have to wait and see who is correct. Are you preparing for that day?”
What a moron to keep justifying more people and claim we could easily support 10BIL or more! LMFAO again Makati Bill. Do you understand the economics of food? NO. Do you understand the components of the food chain? NO. Are you pure agenda? Yes.

HARM on Wed, 8th Jun 2016 10:36 pm 



@Davy,

Of COURSE we can support populations of 10B or more, or even 20B. All we need is to get garage-tech cold fusion working, perfect warp drive, start mining asteroids, complete the Trump U curriculum (to get rich quick), pray to Prosperity Gospel Jesus (or was it Ayn Rand?) and wait for the Rapture. Or something like that. I’m far too optimistic to be bothered by details.

makati1 on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 12:57 am 



HARM, nice satire! But, if you are thinking 20B American type, wasteful, obease humans, then no, we cannot have that many. But if you are thinking 3rd world adequate living with few luxuries, then yes, 20B could live decent lives. Weather permitting, of course.

GregT on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 1:14 am 



Never let doomerism get in the way of sheer optimism. Why stop at 20B? Human technology knows no limitations. To hell with Mother Nature, I say we shoot for a Trillion!

peakyeast on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 3:03 am 



I agree with mak here. It is entirely possible to get to an ideal world where only humans and its food exist. That is if you discount human nature and the love of war.

makati1 on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 4:41 am 



peaky, that’s why we will never get much past the numbers we are now. Climate change is baked in. World War, with a nuclear ending is also likely from all signs I see. Neither is going to allow humans to get past 2100, I think.

yoshua on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 5:22 am 



A rice that depletes the soil 50 percent faster.

How on earth are we going to survive when the best and brightest among us are just dumb monkeys ?

makati1 on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 5:38 am 



Did you not seem to understand that it uses phosphorus NOT accessible by other rice plants. That means it is using phosphorus that would not be accessible other wise. I suggest you read the source of info I attached to my comment. Then come back with a real rebuttal, if there is one.

As for phosphorus, nitrogen and the other minerals, they can ALL be replaced by returning the waste to the soil. The Chinese farmed the same plots for hundreds of years without artificial fertilizers. They are NOT necessary.

makati1 on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 6:21 am 



I think I know why some on here have problems with reality. They never got beyond the fairy tale level in reading.

“A population of illiterate, non-thinking morons can’t possibly obtain good paying jobs. This country spends $12,000 per public school student per year on education and this is the outcome? The factual data presented below paints a picture of an empire in rapid decline. We are too far gone. No amount of money or presidential election is going to change this course. We chose this path in the 1960s and now we will reap the consequences.
Education

In a study of literacy among 20 ‘high income’ countries; US ranked 12th

Illiteracy has become such a serious problem in our country that 44 million adults are now unable to read a simple story to their children.

50% of adults cannot read a book written at an eighth grade level

45 million are functionally illiterate and read below a 5th grade level

44% of the American adults do not read a book in a year

6 out of 10 households do not buy a single book in a year

Economy

According to the Pew Research Center, the median income of middle-class households declined by 4 percent from 2000 to 2014.

The Pew Research Center has also found that median wealth for middle-class households dropped by an astounding 28 percent between 2001 and 2013.

There are still 900,000 fewer middle-class jobs in America than there were when the last recession began, but the population has grown significantly larger since that time.

According to the Social Security Administration, 51 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year.

An astounding 48.8 percent of all 25-year-old Americans still live at home with their parents.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 49 percent of all Americans now live in a home that receives money from the government each month, and nearly 47 million Americans are living in poverty right now.

In 2007, about one out of every eight children in America was on food stamps. Today, that number is one out of every five.

The median net worth of families in the United States was $137, 955 in 2007. Today, it is just $82,756.”

http://www.theburningplatform.com/2016/06/08/picture-of-decline/

Sure glad I went to school when they actually taught subjects and let you fail if you didn’t learn. Way better to fail in school that to fail at life after.

Davy on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 6:54 am 



Sorry Makati Bill, the picture is not as bad as you puke. You have to include the rest of the world in your condemnations. Once the rest of the world is included it doesn’t look as bad.

Of the top 30 nations listed, almost two thirds are European. The US ranks 10th overall and is followed closely by the United Kingdom (13th) and Germany (14th).
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-30-most-prosperous-countries-in-the-world-2014-11

PracticalMaina on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 9:17 am 



Check out this tech and how much, if it is as good as the creator is claiming, impact it could have on pollution-resource scarcity in overpopulated areas.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/mexican-engineer-extracts-gas-urine-heat-shower-032547409.html

Sissyfuss on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 9:20 am 



Man, what’s immigration like to the Ps?

Apneaman on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 12:23 pm 



The Sheer Terror of Looming Biosphere Collapse

“Otherwise the hairless ape shows all intentions of pulling down the biosphere as we frantically seek more not understanding there is no more to be had. The sky is falling. Earth is nearly dead. The end of being looms.”

http://www.ecointernet.org/2016/06/05/the-sheer-terror-of-looming-biosphere-collapse/

Sissyfuss on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 5:07 pm 



Edit. Mak, what is immigration to the Ps like? Is it allowed?

Apneaman on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 5:42 pm 



tic tock tic tock tic tock…

Arctic sea ice fell to record low for May

This year could be worst ever for melt as data shows average sea ice extent for last month was more than half a million square kilometres smaller than the previous record of May 2012

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/08/arctic-sea-ice-falls-to-record-low

Apneaman on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 5:45 pm 



tic tock tic tock tic tock…

Atmospheric carbon dioxide just reached a huge record high

“The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached a new record in May. It also increased more in a single year than it has since we began to monitor it in the late 1950s — something that we can mostly attribute to the burning of fossil fuels, plus a little nudge from El Niño.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/06/07/atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-just-reached-a-huge-record-high/

Apneaman on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 5:48 pm 



Unabated Global Warming Threatens West’s Snowpack, Water Supply

New study shows a snowline creeping higher in the Rockies, Sierra Nevada and Cascades and the resulting decrease in spring runoff endangers those below.

“A shift of that magnitude means less spring runoff for millions of square miles of watersheds in the lower elevations of the West. The melting of the spring snowpack determines how much water feeds critical reservoirs in 11 Western states. That water helps sustain Phoenix, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and other cities, as well as farms and mountain ecosystems, through hot, dry summers.

Less spring snowpack means water managers will have to capture runoff earlier in the season, and dried up forests, brush and grasslands will increase early season wildfires. Western ski resorts will also be affected, because the snowline will rise above the base elevation of many of them, according to the study”

http://insideclimatenews.org/news/07062016/unabated-global-warming-threatens-west-snowpack-water-rocky-mountains-sierra-nevada-drought

Apneaman on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 6:10 pm 



Flooding and Climate Change: French Acceptance, Texas Denial

“French Acceptance, Texas Denial

How did elected officials in France and Texas react to what amounts to just the latest in a steady parade of climate change-related, extreme weather disasters?

French President François Hollande unambiguously linked the rains and flooding to global warming. “When there are climatic phenomena of this seriousness,” he said, “we must all be aware that we must act globally.” Hollande’s perspective is representative of the view held by virtually all elected officials in France, regardless of party affiliation.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, meanwhile, was forced to declare a state of disaster in four dozen Texas counties or, as he put it, “literally from the Red River to the Rio Grande,” but made no mention of the role climate change likely played.

That’s not a surprise: Abbott is a climate science denier.”

http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/09/flooding-climate-change/

Oh how I love the Darwinian implications. It’s not survival of the fittest. It’s survival of the most adaptable. You can’t adapt to a problem you can’t admit is happening. Bye bye texass, glad you are leaving us first.

makati1 on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 6:51 pm 



Sissy, I am not sure what it is , but I do know that there are many ways to live here legally. It is obviously not a problem because I have not hear of, or read, any news about illegals. There are at least 10,000 of us retired Americans living here on an SRRV retirement visa. Easy requirements and you can stay as long as you like.

There may be as many as 1 million ‘foreigners’ living here with Filipina wives or Filipino husbands. I see them everyday. Add in the ones on work visas, education visas, and tourist visas, and the number again may be over a million at any one time.

This in not America. I live in a multi-national community with many countries represented even in my condo tower. Foreign languages are common in the elevator although most speak English also. Foreigners are multi lingual. Not education restricted like Americans. Refreshing!

makati1 on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 7:01 pm 



Sissy, I lived here for the first 7 years as a ‘tourist’. I just renewed my visa as required and left the country for every 16 months to reset the time limits. I have a Philippine I.D. and have had no problems.

A day trip to Hong Kong costs less than $80 and I use it to shop. Most of my ‘exits’ have been to the Us but that will soon end. Too expensive and I don’t want to be trapped there if the SHTF. My total expenses for staying here is about $800/yr, or less than what I have saved in medical bills over the same period.

JuanP on Thu, 9th Jun 2016 7:16 pm 



Mak, That is a very common confusion and part of the demography learning curve. Most people think that a population stops growing when the fertility rate is reduced below 2.1 children per woman, but this is mostly not so in practice. Many countries have fertility rates below 2.0 children per woman and growing populations because the number of births and the net migration are higher than the number of deaths.

If a grandfather had four or five kids, and they grew up and had 1.5 kids each, the family still grows when those kids give birth to their offspring, even if they have less than 2 kids per woman, because the number of grandchildren being born is higher than the number of grandparents dying.

Newfie on Fri, 10th Jun 2016 4:34 pm 



Whoope! We’ll grow forever. An economists wet dream.

makati1 on Fri, 10th Jun 2016 7:03 pm 



JuanP, not if the deaths increase along with the drop in births. And those deaths are increasing as longevity is decreasing all over the planet. For a while, the population may increase, but at a slower rate until the death rate passes the birth rate.

I question how anyone actually knows the world’s population at any given time, or is it just a mathematical “estimate”? The Us may take a census but that is invalid as soon as it is finished. Ditto for all countries. Just how many Chinese or Indians are there? Who knows? Even China and India don’t.

As for migration, the total human number does not change with migration. Only countries worry about migrants. Not the total planet. The shifting has begun and nothing will stop it. Births, deaths and migration.

makati1 on Fri, 10th Jun 2016 7:05 pm 



sissy, to clarify my statement:

” My total (VISA) expenses for staying here are about $800/yr,…”