Improving crop production
About 30 million years ago, selection pressures were just right, allowing some C3 plants to evolve C4 photosynthesis. However, not all plant lineages were that ‘lucky’. Rice, for example, is one of the most consumed and the most important crop plant on the planet (maize and wheat trailing right behind). Unlike maize, which is C4, rice is a C3 plant that lacks the modernised capabilities of the former. But what if we could bypass evolution and introduce a C4-augmented rice superplant?
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