A seed fertility breakthrough by scientists at Australia's La Trobe University suggests that a key to bountiful harvests is in the tiniest of details.
The university announced that the research team's experiments that monitored individual cells within seeds in intervals of 12, 24, and 48 hours gave them insight into how those seeds grow and when each cell function turns on.
Typically, as has been previously established, seeds don't grow at a uniform rate. When mature crops are ripe, growers often harvest the less developed plants along with them, resulting in reduced yields and wasted resources.
However, Lim Chee Liew, the lead researcher, explained that their findings on the workings of plant cells could allow growers to ensure seeds germinate at the same time.
"This will show us which cells we can manipulate to ensure seeds germinate together — or even delay their growth to a certain time," Liew said in the release. "Uniform germination enables growers to achieve optimal plant-spacing and harvesting time."
The study, published in the journal Nature, focused on mouse-ear cress, often known as thale cress, because it is "a model organism for plant biology and genetic studies," per the release.
The announcement didn't address the negative impact that rising global temperatures have had on farmers and certain crop yields, with extreme weather among the challenging effects of a warming planet.
Yet the analysis is another crucial breakthrough that could reduce economic losses for growers and help support the nutritional needs of a growing global population, which the United Nations projects will reach 10 billion by 2050 — an increase of two billion people.
Other promising studies aimed at maximizing crop yields involve improving soil quality and using artificial intelligence to assist with harvest timing (which could also reduce the need for toxic chemical fertilizers and pesticides). It's fair to wonder if some combination of these processes will eventually become the norm in agriculture.
Ultimately, Liew believes her team's findings will benefit a wide variety of crop species.
"This discovery will help us develop practical solutions to ensure germination happens at the right time — and uniformly," she said in the release.
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