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from the make-hay-while-the-sun-shines dept.
Scientists affiliated with the RIPE (Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency) Project at the University of Illinois and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service report that they have been able to increase photosynthetic efficiency in genetically engineered tobacco plants by 40% over normal tobacco plants.
They did this by working around a well known problem in many types of plants. Instead of only taking in CO2, the main enzyme involved, rubisco, also can bind oxygen. This not only doesn't produce the usual carbohydrate that is the base of the food chain, it creates toxic side products that the plants have to spend energy to break down into safe forms.
The key thing they show is that they can do this not in the laboratory, but in ordinary fields here in Central Illinois. Tobacco is a common "lab rat" plant, so it's not about the tobacco industry. Many of our biggest crops (so called C3 plants) waste energy this way. If they can do it for tobacco, they probably can do this for other plants as well.
PhysOrg: https://phys.org/news/2019-01-scientists-shortcut-photosynthetic-glitch-boost.html
Original Science Paper (may be paywalled): http://science.sciencemag.org/content/363/6422/eaat9077
(Score: 4, Informative) by Hartree on Thursday January 10 2019, @01:12AM
Actually, evolution/nature did fix it in some plants in two different ways. Some grasses like corn and sugar cane are what are called C4 plants. They make sure that rubisco works in a high CO2 environment. But there's a downside that this particular fix wastes energy to maintain that high CO2 level, and tends to be more worth it in hot dry conditions.
Similarly, CAM plants (pineapples, for example) have a different fix for photorespiration by only taking in CO2 at night and storing it for use in the day. Again, it means rubisco only gets CO2, not oxygen and tends to be "worth it" in hot dry conditions.
In a lot of wetter cooler conditions, C3 plants have the advantage. The problem is that the plants that developed fixes for photorespiration had to use what they had "laying around" in their genomes already. This introduces a fix that's different in that it doesn't change the environment that rubisco works in, but allows the side products to be used for energy rather than taking more energy to deal with them.
This is very promising, but not ready for prime time yet. They still have to do it in other plants and also show that there aren't unknown downsides to it.