Have you ever wondered if you could get more bang from those lazy plants. Are they really using the least amount of energy to grow? Could they be bigger and use less water or fertilizer? A team of researchers at the University of Illinois asking the same questions used computer modelingto figure out how to make plants more efficient. This is sort of my line of work, except I don't fit models to plant processes. These guys fit a model to the plant data and then simulated photosynthesis. Pretty cool if you ask me. It must have been a little complicated since they needed a supercomputer to do it. Then, by tweaking some parameters here or there, they made the computer plant model produce better plants and use less energy. Quite a feat with all the different processes going on during photosynthesis.
I wonder if they could tweak the model to see if plants could suck up more carbon dioxide (CO2), then we wouldn't have to worry about a global warming problem, just breed plants for those specific traits and voila, no more polar bears swimming for days without finding ice.
They think that the plants weren't being as efficient as possible because they have something in them saying that they need to reserve energy for survival. Silly plants, don't you know that we'll just eat you.
Links if you want to get into the details.
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