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Christine A. Raines, Increasing Photosynthetic Carbon Assimilation in C3 Plants to Improve Crop Yield: Current and Future Strategies, Plant Physiology, Volume 155, Issue 1, January 2011, Pages 36–42, https://doi.org/10.1104/pp.110.168559
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The realization that crop yields are reaching a plateau, while population increases continue at pace, has placed manipulation of photosynthesis in a central position to achieve increases in yield. Increasing flux through the C3 cycle will be a major focus of this effort. Through application of new technologies together with novel modeling approaches, increased yield through improved photosynthetic carbon fixation should be an attainable goal in the near to mid term. This Update article reviews the past approaches and successes in this area. An outline of some of the known targets for future work is given, and approaches to identify novel targets for exploitation are outlined.
Improving crop yield to meet the demands of an increasing world population for food and fuel is a central challenge for plant biology (Edgerton, 2009). This goal must be achieved in a sustainable manner (i.e. with minimal agricultural inputs and environmental impacts) in the face of elevated levels of CO2 and more extreme conditions of water availability and temperature. Agricultural yields have generally kept pace with demand in the recent past as a result of the gains made through breeding programs and farming practice, but crops yields are now reaching a plateau. One fundamental component of plant productivity that has not been used to select for increased yield is photosynthesis. There is now the opportunity to exploit our extensive knowledge of this fundamental process for the benefit of humankind (von Caemmerer and Evans, 2010; Zhu et al., 2010a).
