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Improving photosynthetic efficiency for greater yield.
Open accessAbstract
Increasing the yield potential of the major food grain crops has contributed very significantly to a rising food supply over the past 50 years, which has until recently more than kept pace with rising global demand. Whereas improved photosynthetic efficiency has played only a minor role in the remarkable increases in productivity achieved in the last half century, further increases in yield potential will rely in large part on improved photosynthesis. Here we examine inefficiencies in photosynthetic energy transduction in crops from light interception to carbohydrate synthesis, and how classical breeding, systems biology, and synthetic biology are providing new opportunities to develop more productive germplasm. Near-term opportunities include improving the display of leaves in crop canopies to avoid light saturation of individual leaves and further investigation of a photorespiratory bypass that has already improved the productivity of model species. Longer-term opportunities include engineering into plants carboxylases that are better adapted to current and forthcoming CO 2 concentrations, and the use of modeling to guide molecular optimization of resource investment among the components of the photosynthetic apparatus, to maximize carbon gain without increasing crop inputs. Collectively, these changes have the potential to more than double the yield potential of our major crops.
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“In another case, RuBisCO, often considered an inefficient enzyme due to relatively low turnover rates in CO2 fixation at the core of the Calvin Cycle, can be can successfully engineered to boost photosynthetic efficiency in both microalgae and cyanobacteria [34].”
From Overview and Challenges of Large-Scale Cultivation of Photosynthetic Microalgae and Cyanobacteria (2023) · cites this paper as [34]
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“These advancements in 𝜀i and 𝜀p leave only modest potential for further improvement of Yp (Zhu et al., 2010).”
From Photosynthesis, Light Use Efficiency, and Yield of Reduced-Chlorophyll Soybean Mutants in Field Conditions (2017) · cites this paper as Zhu et al., 2010
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“However, 𝜀c operates substantially below the theoretical maxima for C3 (0.094) and C4 (0.123; Zhu et al., 2010) crop canopies and therefore limits yield potential (Zhu et al., 2008, 2010)”
From Photosynthesis, Light Use Efficiency, and Yield of Reduced-Chlorophyll Soybean Mutants in Field Conditions (2017) · cites this paper as Zhu et al., 2010
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“Reducing chlorophyll (chl) content may improve the conversion efficiency of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation into biomass and therefore yield in dense monoculture crops by improving light penetration and distribution within the canopy.”
From Photosynthesis, Light Use Efficiency, and Yield of Reduced-Chlorophyll Soybean Mutants in Field Conditions (2017) · cites this paper as Zhu et al., 2010
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“Reducing leaf chlorophyll (chl) content has been proposed as a strategy to improve 𝜀c in crop canopies.”
From Photosynthesis, Light Use Efficiency, and Yield of Reduced-Chlorophyll Soybean Mutants in Field Conditions (2017) · cites this paper as Zhu et al., 2010
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“By distributing light more proportionately throughout leaf layers (Zhu et al., 2010; Ort et al., 2011, 2015), absorbed PPFD could be used more efficiently by mitigating both light oversaturation at the top of canopy and light limitation within the canopy.”
From Photosynthesis, Light Use Efficiency, and Yield of Reduced-Chlorophyll Soybean Mutants in Field Conditions (2017) · cites this paper as Zhu et al., 2010
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“To account for light lost by reflectance and transmission, the amount of light available to the model was set to be 90% of the PPFD (Zhu et al., 2010).”
From Leaf Energy Balance Requires Mitochondrial Respiration and Export of Chloroplast NADPH in the Light (2019) · cites this paper as Zhu et al., 2010
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“[26] estimated that at least a 50% improvement in photosynthetic efficiency will also be critical to meet the doubled global yield of grain crops over this century.”
BackgroundDuring photosynthetic induction, biochemical and stomatal limitations differ between Brassica crops
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Novel target sites for soybean yield enhancement by photosynthesis
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“However, biology suffers from relatively poor solar energy conversion efficiencies, as conventional crops only have a 0.5 to 1% solar-to-biomass conversion efficiency [129].”
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Photosynthetic Constraints on Fuel from Microbes
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“Crop yield potential, the maximum possible regional yield for a given crop under optimal management without biotic and abiotic stresses, can be estimated by integrating the product of the daily total incoming photosynthetically active radiation (I0,d), fraction of intercepted photosynthetically active radiation (PAR)…”
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“Photosynthesis plays an important role in yield improvement (Zhu et al., 2010).”
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“Successful breeding efforts across recent decades have limited opportunities for improvements in canopy LI efficiency (Zhu et al. 2010).”
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“An assumption of high‐performing cultivars in monocultures is that the theoretical maximum of ɛi and HI have already been achieved (Koester et al., 2014; Zhu et al., 2010), whereas lesser gains in ɛc for C3 and C4 crops have been realized (Zhu et al.”
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Metadata
- Authors
- Zhu, X.-G., Long, S. P., & Ort, D. R.
- Affiliations
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)
- Agricultural Research Service (US)
- Venue
- Annual Review of Plant Biology
- Publisher
- Annual Reviews
- Published
- 2010-06-02
- Volume
- 61
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 235-261
- ISSN
- 1543-5008 (ISSN-L)
- 1545-2123
- OpenAlex
- W2117225984
- Cited by
- 1,902
- References
- 150
- Citations by year
- 2026: 115 · 2025: 164 · 2024: 163 · 2023: 139 · 2022: 184 · 2021: 151 · 2020: 142 · 2019: 122 · 2018: 112 · 2017: 111 · 2016: 116 · 2015: 98 · 2014: 93 · 2013: 58 · 2012: 66
- FWCI
- 5.35
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Annual Review of Plant Biology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Photosynthetic Processes and Mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Agronomy and Crop Science › Crop Yield and Soil Fertility
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics
- Keywords
- photosynthetic efficiency, crop yield potential, light interception, Rubisco, light saturation, systems biology, synthetic biology, crop breeding, carbon gain
- MeSH terms
- Carboxy-Lyases, Photosynthesis, Plant Leaves, Crops, Agricultural
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