Increasing wheat crop yields: GMO & non-GM solutions - Matthew Paul 🌾🧬

Food security means we have to improve crop yields AND and drought / pest resistance in plants. However, achieving both of these traits at once is difficult as they involve often opposing biological mechanisms. Matthew Paul researches sugar signalling - how sugar levels in crops impact growth and yield under different conditions.

Understanding this allows us to be able to design strategies to modify crop yields. In particular, we can now alter sugar levels in cereal, to preventing seed loss and also increase yields. It has also been possible to ensure more of the sucrose that travels to the grain is converted to starch. These approaches have seen increases in both the amount of grain and the overall grain size. This presentation will present results from yield increases in maize and wheat through genetic modification and new chemical methodology

00:00 Introduction
03:09 Background and context
10:57 Norman Borlaug & The Green Revolution
16:02 The problem: growth, photosynthesis and sucrose
21:29 Different solutions
43:13 Summary
48:09 Conclusion and Thank You

Speaker profile: Professor Matthew Paul is a research leader at Rothamsted Research, interested in understanding how sugars in crops regulate growth and yield in different environments as a means to increase productivity. After completing his degree in Agricultural Botany and a PhD in plant biochemistry of metabolic adaptations to drought, he went on to conduct post-doctoral research in Germany via a Royal Society Fellowship.

"The joys of research are finding something that has not been known before and which could ultimately have a large impact on society through improving food supplies for example. I enjoy planning strategies to achieve this, ensuring work gets published and collaborating with a range of people internationally which is great fun. I have always tried to think outside the box a little in what I do; I think originality is important."

Filmed at the Gatsby Plant Science Summer School, 2017.
#cropscience #gmcrops #foodsecurity

The end of food insecurity? Scientists increase crop yield by 20% using chemical technology, Farming UK - https://www.farminguk.com/news/the-en...

Monster-wheat grown by Oxford could revolutionise farming, The Telegraph - https://www.farminguk.com/news/the-en...