US scientists have created potatoes that are more resistant to global warming

A team of researchers from the University of Illinois (USA) has engineered potatoes to be more resilient to global warming, showing a 30% increase in tuber mass in hot conditions, EastFruit reports. The scientists showed that by adding two new genes, glycolate dehydrogenase and malate synthase, they could increase the efficiency of photosynthesis. The energy savings contributed to the increase in model yield, Potato Business reports. “The 30% increase in tuber mass observed during our field trials shows the promise of improving photosynthesis to produce climate-ready crops,” said Katherine Meachum-Gensold, director of the Illinois Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency (RIPE) project. The benefits, recently published in Global Change Biology, were tripled in heat waves, which are becoming more frequent and intense as global warming progresses. Three weeks into the 2022 field season, when the potatoes were still in the early vegetative growth phase, a heat wave kept ...