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Can genetic modification improve a potato crop?
Can cultivated potatoes be genetically modified?
Can gene editing improve potato production?
Jan 6, 2022 · These problems can be addressed by genetic modification (GM) or gene editing (GE) and open a wide horizon for potato crop improvement. Current genetically modified and gene edited varieties include those with Colorado potato beetle and late blight resistance, reduction in acrylamide, and modified starch content.
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Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is the third most important...
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Genetic modification Approval for human consumption;...
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Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is the third most important...
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Over the past two decades, many journals, including this one, have published papers describing how modifying one or a few genes can result in substantial increases in crop yields (see ‘Genes and yield’). The reported increases range from 10% to 68%, and the crops analysed include rice, maize (corn), tobacco and soya bean1–4.
These studies have contributed important insights in molecular biology and gene discovery. But many are the results of tests conducted in greenhouses or in small-scale field trials — the latter typically involving plants grown in small plots. Few, if any, have used the experimental designs needed to evaluate crop performance in real-world environments. And hardly any findings have translated into yield increases on actual farms.
Especially in the context of climate change and a growing human population, the growth of misleading claims around yields has become a cause of concern to us. As plant breeders, quantitative geneticists, evolutionary biologists and plant biologists, many of us have worked on national projects or on crop breeding in collaboration with multinational companies.
Promising reports of the possible effects on crop yields of introducing a gene from another species, or of using the gene-editing technique CRISPR–Cas9 to modify a gene or multiple genes, attract considerable media attention. Yet, more-conventional plant-breeding approaches used over decades paint a very different picture of what genetic modifications are likely to achieve, in relation to yields, in the coming decades.
What breeders and quantitative geneticists consider true breakthroughs in crop productivity have entailed yield increases of the order of 1–5% in a single generation5–7. These validated increases come from multi-year experiments involving multiple plots and locations around the world. Although seemingly modest, these increases are actually remarkable in the context of total global production.
Take the two-decade long project conducted by the seed company Corteva Agriscience, based in Indianapolis, Indiana, the results of which were published in 2021 in Plant Science. Investigators tested the effect of 1,671 genes, taken from 47 species, on yield, nitrogen use, water use and other traits in maize. Only 1% of these genes (22 genes) increased yield enough in an initial trial to warrant more investigation7. And in subsequent rounds of testing, only one gene — zmm28, which encodes a transcription factor — generated the kind of yield improvements that the company had been hoping for.
To interrogate the effects of zmm28 in the field, researchers introduced genetic changes that result in the overexpression of the gene into two elite inbred lines. (Intense selection over the past 100 years has produced maize elite inbred lines, which can be crossed to produce high-yielding hybrids.) These were used to create 48 types of hybrid plant, which were tested over 4 years in 58 location–year combinations worldwide. All this field testing showed that the overexpression of zmm28 could increase the yield of maize by around 2%5.
Thousands of genes affect crop yields indirectly. In maize alone, around 20–30 genes, such as those in the liguleless family, which alter the angle of leaves, have allowed farmers to increase the density of plants on their farms by 3–4 times over the past 100 years or so8. About 8.5–17% of the observed growth in yield can be attributed to a rise in planting density8,9. But yield itself is a highly complex, polygenic trait — meaning that it is controlled by thousands of variants, each with a small effect10.
Although single genes can affect yield, such genes always operate in conjunction with soil and fertilizer management regimes, the hundreds of other genes involved in crop domestication and adaptation, and so on. The drastic increase in crop yields and agricultural production of the Green Revolution, for instance, stemmed from the introduction of the gene variants Rht-B1 and Rht-D1 into wheat and sd1 into rice, in combination with greater use of synthetic fertilizer. These variants shortened the plants, reducing their susceptibility to damage in high winds.
Dec 23, 2022 · Main conclusion. Genome editing using CRISPR/Cas technology improves the quality of potato as a food crop and enables its use as both a model plant in fundamental research and as a potential biofactory for producing valuable compounds for industrial applications.
- 10.1007/s00425-022-04054-3
- 2023
- Planta. 2023; 257(1): 25.
Jan 6, 2024 · Genetic Engineering of Crop Plants for Food and Health Security. Chapter. Genetic Engineering for Potato Improvement: Current Challenges and Future Opportunities. Baljeet Singh, Vadthya Lokya, Priyanka Kaundal & Siddharth Tiwari. Chapter. First Online: 06 January 2024. 181 Accesses. Abstract.
Jan 2, 2021 · These problems can be addressed by genetic modification (GM) or gene editing (GE) and open a wide horizon for potato crop improvement. Current genetically modified and gene edited varieties include those with Colorado potato beetle and late blight resistance, reduction in acrylamide, and modified starch content.
Jan 10, 2022 · There is a variety of methods for potato improvement via genetic transformation. Most of them incorporate genes of interest into the nuclear genome; nevertheless, the development of plastid transformation protocols broadened the available approaches for potato breeding.
Nov 7, 2019 · A greater understanding of plant mechanisms that increase yields in variable environments is essential to drive the necessary gains in crop improvement, which can be fuelled by genetic...
