Description du projet
Combiner plusieurs approches pour améliorer les cultures
Comme la demande de nourriture continue de croître sur le marché, l’agriculture doit produire davantage de denrées alimentaires pour nourrir une population croissante. Le projet PhotoBoost, financé par l’UE, examinera les possibilités de combler l’écart grandissant entre la productivité agricole et la demande du marché mondial pour l’alimentation humaine et animale et les cultures bioénergétiques, tout en respectant l’environnement. Plus précisément, le projet augmentera l’efficacité de la photosynthèse pour développer des cultures C3 améliorées (pomme de terre et riz). Il y parviendra en combinant plusieurs approches: l’optimisation des réactions à la lumière, l’intégration d’un mécanisme de concentration du CO2 par les algues, l’introduction d’un mécanisme artificiel de contournement de la photorespiration, et l’optimisation de la capacité source-puits. Si les membres du consortium ont augmenté l’efficacité de la photosynthèse jusqu’à 15 % en utilisant l’une des approches ci-dessus, la combinaison de deux ou plusieurs d’entre elles dans la même plante n’a jamais été tentée.
Objectif
The PhotoBoost project addresses the widening gap between agricultural productivity and the global market demand for food/feed and bioenergy crops in an environmentally friendly manner by increasing the efficiency of photosynthetic CO2 fixation. This will be achieved by developing enhanced C3 crops that combine two or more of the following approaches: a) the optimisation of light reactions; b) the integration of an algal CCM; c) the introduction of an engineered photorespiratory bypass mechanism, improved by the knockout of the native plastid glycolate-glycerate transporter; and d) the optimisation of source-sink capacity, improved by the knockout of phloem-mobile tuberisation signal SP6A, thus enhancing the resilience of heat-sensitive cultivars to climate change. The consortium members have increased photosynthetic efficiency by up to 15% using individual approaches, but the stacking of multiple approaches in the same plant has never been attempted before. We will also explore e) the adaptation of stomatal conductance to improve the water-use efficiency, and f) the integration of an O2 scavenging mechanism as a novel strategy to boost photosynthesis. Experience from past and/or ongoing EU and B&MGF projects clearly indicates that although the individual approaches can be effective, they are insufficient to achieve the ambitious objectives of the current call. Therefore, the PhotoBoost project will generate optimised lines representing two major food crops (potato and rice) by simultaneously targeting multiple constraints limiting photosynthetic efficiency. We aim to increase photosynthetic efficiency under diverse environmental conditions by at least 20–25% in terms of photosynthesis rates and by at least 25–30% in terms of biomass yield. Our published results demonstrate that such approaches are viable and there is no a priori reason to doubt that combining multiple approaches in the same plant will achieve even higher levels of biomass yield and productivity.
Champ scientifique
- social scienceseconomics and businesseconomicsproduction economicsproductivity
- agricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesagriculture
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesatmospheric sciencesclimatologyclimatic changes
- agricultural sciencesagricultural biotechnologybiomass
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesbotany
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Régime de financement
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinateur
80686 Munchen
Allemagne