Scientists Patch Photosynthesis Glitch to Make Plants Grow 40 Percent Larger

by Ryan Whitwam

All that oxygen you enjoy breathing doesn’t just appear magically in the atmosphere. Earth is livable because plants around the globe pump out oxygen as a byproduct of photosynthesis, and some of them become tasty food crops in addition. However, photosynthesis isn’t perfect despite many eons of evolutionary refinement. Scientists from the University of Illinois have worked to correct for a flaw in photosynthesis, and that could improve crop yields by as much as 40 percent.

At the heart of the new research is a process in plants called photorespiration, which is not so much part of photosynthesis as it is a consequence of it. Like many biological processes, photosynthesis doesn’t work correctly 100 percent of the time. In fact, one of the main reactions in photosynthesis is only about 75 percent effective. The change comes in the process that plants undertake because of that inefficiency.

In photosynthesis, plants take water and carbon dioxide and process it to create sugars (food) and oxygen. Plants don’t need the oxygen, so it gets expelled. Happily, we do need oxygen, and we exhale carbon dioxide.

The problem addressed in the new study is with an enzyme called ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase-oxygenase (RuBisCO)…