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RNA breakthrough creates crops that can grow 50 percent more potatoes, rice

sciencedaily.com

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Re: RNA breakthrough creates crops that can grow 50 percent more potatoes, rice

#151

Post by CrimpCity »

tobmlt wrote: post #92
CrimpCity wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a ton of bio specific domain knowledge you’d need to pick up. I haven’t met too many self taught comp bio people I’d imagine it’s the same as the number of self taught computational mechanics people. From my limited experience (this could def not generalize) the two fields are very different in industry. Comp mech tends to be very design or analysis oriented and hence project management heavy. Generally you a…

Thank you for the info depth response. I am credentialed and experienced at picking up things across domains so I might kick it around a bit - as far as it dove tails with computational quantum mechanics at least. Could be interesting to look at the interface between quantum and classical chemistry… …And look at the interface between molecular dynamics and continuum FEM.

Computational chemistry is gaining momentum you may be able to jump into it! Good luck!

Re: RNA breakthrough creates crops that can grow 50 percent more potatoes, rice

#152

Post by simonh »

7952 wrote: post #149
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't have you tell you this, and not disagreeing with you.. but ... Farming is mining. It's extractive. Every bit of plant matter we ship off our farms in the form of food is carbon and nitrogen that is no longer in our soils. I concur most farmers don't give a crap. But even the ones who do, it just slows it down, doesn't stop it. We run a little market garden. I follow all sorts of agronomy feeds and information a…

I think most carbon in plants comes from CO2 in the air.

As does the nitrogen, this is basic biology. Post is tosh. We’ve been farming in Europe for 10,000 years and still going strong. Soil regeneration is not rocket science.

Re: RNA breakthrough creates crops that can grow 50 percent more potatoes, rice

#153

Post by quakeguy »

bluGill wrote: post #141
quakeguy wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even when birds or small mammals eat and digest the seeds?

Peas are the seeds. There are some plans that need an animal to digest the seed covering, but not all plants have that as part of their reproduction cycle. (I'm not sure what pea's natural cycle was)

Thank you for clarifying this.

Re: RNA breakthrough creates crops that can grow 50 percent more potatoes, rice

#154

Post by cmrdporcupine »

simonh wrote: post #152
7952 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most carbon in plants comes from CO2 in the air.

As does the nitrogen, this is basic biology. Post is tosh. We’ve been farming in Europe for 10,000 years and still going strong. Soil regeneration is not rocket science.

Most plants can't take nitrogen from the air. Only nitrogen fixing legumes do that, and only with the assistance of bacteria in the soil biome.

Re: RNA breakthrough creates crops that can grow 50 percent more potatoes, rice

#155

Post by naasking »

jessaustin wrote: post #101
naasking wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Producing enough food is not a challenge humanity faces. We have more than enough food. Distribution is the problem. Monocultural has also been a problem many times in the past, so calling it a "chicken little" objection is disingenuous.

There are lots of hungry people, in lots of places. Please have some sympathy for their plight. Capitalists tell us that they can properly distribute the food produced in a few nations to everywhere, but they have so far largely failed to do so. Invariably capitalists and their useful idiots invoke "market failures" as reasons for capitalist-owned politicians to take even more freedoms from producers and consumers th…

Honestly, I don't see what anything you just said has anything to do with what I've been saying.

Re: RNA breakthrough creates crops that can grow 50 percent more potatoes, rice

#156

Post by smolder »

b112 wrote: post #98
bullfightonmars wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not how plants work. The increased biomass comes from carbon in the air. There is already more than enough nutrients in the ground or applied as fertilizer. In fact most of the nutrients from fertilizer are lost and wash away. This will allow plants to capture more applied ferilizer. Mostly though these plants will be pulling more carbon from the atmosphere.

There have been loads of reports about how crops have fewer nutrients already. And, for example, there are many trace elements which are not replenished with standard fertilizer. Selenium is an example here, I think it is the Danish?, which have a law now, forcing it to be added to fertilizer. Bacteria don't make elements.... although I suppose they could free them from rocks...

The last such report I saw pinned lower micronutrient density not on the quality of soils, but on higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations, leading to quicker growth of the plants. Plants in lower concentrations grew more slowly but had relatively more micronutrients for the same mass.

Re: RNA breakthrough creates crops that can grow 50 percent more potatoes, rice

#158

Post by mauzy »

foxyv wrote: post #40
necovek wrote: post #21

While I see people worry about the nutrient content in the resulting food, I wonder more about the nutrient content of the soil after a few years of such products. While we fertilize the soil, the mention of "longer and deeper roots" means that such plants will take out more from the ground, making ground less usable for future farming. Basically, as others have said, there is an evolutionary reason plants do not nat…

Deeper roots tend to make for healthier soil. This is why dandelions are such a boon for someone with poor soil. Their deep roots break up poorly aerated soil allowing aerobic bacteria to produce nutrients for plants. Modern farmers are keenly aware of soil quality and spend a lot of time and money to keep their farms running at top efficiency. The thing that worries me the most about modern farming is the use of pet…

While the statement implying that modern farmers are good Shepard's of soil quality is... debatable at best and I'd argue mostly false it is certainly true that, as a rule, deeper / larger root structures benefit soil rather than diminishing. Especially within the same family of crops deeper roots will always result in a healthier soil than shallow.

Re: RNA breakthrough creates crops that can grow 50 percent more potatoes, rice

#159

Post by bamboozled »

bullfightonmars wrote: post #89
bamboozled wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it good for humans to eat more fertiliser, pesticides etc ?

You don’t eat fertilizer in your food. It is applied to the ground before the plants fruit. It is also water soluble and quickly washes away. Pesticides aee higly dependent on crop and really have nothing to do with this conversation.

The parent said the plants will absorb more fertilisers

Re: RNA breakthrough creates crops that can grow 50 percent more potatoes, rice

#160

Post by clomond »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #142
RosanaAnaDana wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Modern farmers are keenly aware of soil quality and spend a lot of time and money to keep their farms running at top efficiency. You sure about that? When I was ARS, sure there were 3-4 farmers I met who took SOC and and soil health seriously; individuals who wanted to think about their soil as an ecosystem and grow their soils as they did their crops. Then there were the other 96-97 farmers you would meet who could…

Don't have you tell you this, and not disagreeing with you.. but ... Farming is mining. It's extractive. Every bit of plant matter we ship off our farms in the form of food is carbon and nitrogen that is no longer in our soils. I concur most farmers don't give a crap. But even the ones who do, it just slows it down, doesn't stop it. We run a little market garden. I follow all sorts of agronomy feeds and information a…

Abundant renewable energy, driven by decreases in costs of solar, wind and energy storage could be used with no other inputs but energy* via the Haber process + electrolysis.

I suppose I don’t know the chemical compound that constitute “solid soil amendment” though. If it includes functionally free nitrogen/ammonia and proper management of land or equipment, is this still not possible?

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