Could we have gluten free wheat and corn that creates its own plant food?
I would wager your diet is compromised of a good bit of corn or wheat, or both. And for those who are avoiding the corn and wheat, this may just as equally apply!
Its not often that you catch big discoveries in the world of agriculture, let alone within 2 major commodities in the same month, but this august it happened. These discoveries open up possibilities for both producers and consumers of these staples and may even uncover more possibilities in the world of botany.
We cracked the DNA code of wheat.
Wait… what? What took you so long? Well as it goes, decoding the genome of wheat has been a longer job for a number of reasons. We humans have a humble DNA comprised of around 24,000 genes while the unassuming wheat plant has 107,000. Great! So what does this mean? For one, being able to understand wheat, we might unlock more potential and efficiency in growing it. Small changes in DNA can create major changes in productivity, but that will require further research and application. The time and capital invested by agriculture industry might reap many more rewards, including drought resistant varieties, allowing for wheat to be farmed in more difficult climates. The other potential is in nutrition, and what wheat might be able to provide to consumers. The challenge with gluten intolerance and many people choosing , might spur research into low gluten wheats or if at all, gluten free wheat. A Hypoallergenic wheat might just be the beginning of a new wave of commodity varieties. The opportunities that mapping the genome of wheat provide are endless, but somewhere, someone is plotting their path to gold.
Super Maize (corn) feeding itself
In 1980 a maize (corn) variety was discovered in Mexico that was growing to incredible height (20 Feet) in th poorest of soil conditions. To be exact, the soil was very poor in nitrogen. Till today most plants need good nitrogen sources in the soil to grow. Certain types of plants that can do well in poor nitrogen soils are “nitrogen fixing” plants. These plants are mostly legumes (peas, beans, peanut and other types) which have root nodules that house a type of symbiotic bacteria that produces nitrogen for the plant from its surroundings. Corn, was never a nitrogen fixing plant, until now. This discovery has only now been understood as a variety of corn that can fix (collect) it’s own nitrogen. What took scientists almost 4 decades to figure out was that the corn exhibited no root nodules in the soil, rather nodules at the base of the plant covered in a thick white slime. Studying this slime it’s now understood this slime that was a medium for bacteria that fixed the nitrogen from the air! For the corn producers, this could mean corn varieties that could be grown in more challenging environments and require little nitrogen suplimentation, or even switch up the crop rotation schedule. This variety of corn will open new avenues for corn production and perhaps even biofuel industry. Moreover, the very existence of a plant previously unknown to have a nitrogen fixing ability casts a new set of questions on how many plants could exhibit or have this ability, in a variety yet unknown or undeveloped. All in all, for producers in industry higher growth potential or splicing this ability with current varieties could mean more output. In the challenging communities of subsistence farming a crop of corn that can creat its own nitrogen could mean more stable food source. On a larger scale countries can build better food security avenues with a more self sufficient crop.
For farmers around the world producing these commodities, these discoveries mean new opportunity. For the agriculture tech and seed producers, this might be new wind in their wings. The challenge still remains on how long before any of these discoveries reach the practice and impact our global food system. On top of that consumer acceptance of genetically manipulated crops may be a hurdle. In the end, it’s still refreshing that we don’t know everything about the world around us, and that we can still be surprised by Mother Nature.
