Innovation Toronto
Now Reading
Tiny grains of rice hold big promise for greenhouse gas reductions, bioenergy
Innovation Toronto
Dark Light
  • Follow
Subscribe
Innovation Toronto
Bringing transformative potential to agriculture with a natural technology for ‘dimming’ genes
This unassuming material is capable of capturing or releasing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in response to moisture swings.
Pulling carbon dioxide out of the air using moisture
A more efficient way to capture fresh water from the air
Staving off coral reef collapse via a new technique
Producing energy from evaporating tap or seawater with new nanoscale devices
Setting the stage for regenerative therapy by turning skin cells into limb cells

Tiny grains of rice hold big promise for greenhouse gas reductions, bioenergy

July 30, 2015
In addition to a near elimination of greenhouse gases associated with its growth, SUSIBA2 rice produces substantially more grains for a richer food source. The new strain is shown here (right) compared to the study's control. Image courtesy of Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
In addition to a near elimination of greenhouse gases associated with its growth, SUSIBA2 rice produces substantially more grains for a richer food source. The new strain is shown here (right) compared to the study’s control.
Image courtesy of Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

Discovery delivers high starch content, virtually no methane emissions

Rice serves as the staple food for more than half of the world’s population, but it’s also the one of the largest manmade sources of atmospheric methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Now, with the addition of a single gene, rice can be cultivated to emit virtually no methane from its paddies during growth. It also packs much more of the plant’s desired properties, such as starch for a richer food source and biomass for energy production, according to a study in Nature.

With their warm, waterlogged soils, rice paddies contribute up to 17 percent of global methane emissions, the equivalent of about 100 million tons each year. While this represents a much smaller percentage of overall greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide, methane is about 20 times more effective at trapping heat. SUSIBA2 rice, as the new strain is dubbed, is the first high-starch, low-methane rice that could offer a significant and sustainable solution.

Researchers created SUSIBA2 rice by introducing a single gene from barley into common rice, resulting in a plant that can better feed its grains, stems and leaves while starving off methane-producing microbes in the soil.

The results, which appear in the July 30 print edition of Nature andonline, represent a culmination of more than a decade of work by researchers in three countries, including Christer Jansson, director of plant sciences at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and EMSL, DOE’s Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory. Jansson and colleagues hypothesized the concept while at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and carried out ongoing studies at the university and with colleagues at China’s Fujian Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Hunan Agricultural University.

“The need to increase starch content and lower methane emissions from rice production is widely recognized, but the ability to do both simultaneously has eluded researchers,” Jansson said. “As the world’s population grows, so will rice production. And as the Earth warms, so will rice paddies, resulting in even more methane emissions. It’s an issue that must be addressed.”

Read more: Tiny grains of rice hold big promise for greenhouse gas reductions, bioenergy

 

The Latest on: SUSIBA2 rice

[google_news title=”” keyword=”SUSIBA2 rice” num_posts=”10″ blurb_length=”0″ show_thumb=”left”]

via Google News

See Also

Cost of Arctic methane release could be ‘size of global economy’ warn experts

 

The Latest on: SUSIBA2 rice

via  Bing News

 

Tags
What's Your Reaction?
Don't Like it!
0
I Like it!
0
View Comments (0)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Scroll To Top