Carbon-suicking weeds?!

[Clarallel]

Now, here's an interesting idea: Arabidopsis thaliana, a small flowering plant. Imagine if that solves an eco-crisis!



Carbon-Sucking Bionic Weeds Are New Front in Climate Change War
Biologists hope that genetically engineered plants can save us from ourselves.
By Adam Piore

If they can replicate these qualities in wheat, corn, soy, rice, cotton, and canola—which together occupy more than half of Earth’s arable land—Chory and her colleagues believe they might just save the world.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-bionic-plants

https://awaken.com/2020/10/climate-change-war/

[guidoLaMoto]

Careful what you wish for.

At our present atm[co2] level of 415ppm, we are dangerously close to the 160ppm level at which all photosynthesis will stop. We haven't been this low since the Permian Extinction.

Thru the 3.5 billion yr history of life on Earth, atm[co2] levels have averaged 2000ppm

High co2 is GOOD for life.

https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/q...-million-years

co2 fertilization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CO2_fe...nd%20nutrients.

[Zoisite]

I'm inclined to agree with Guido saying be careful what one wishes for.

I read the whole article through. Interesting idea but I have certain doubts and don't feel comfortable about it. It seems like the creators working on this have got tunnel vision with only one aim in mind that prevents them from seeing or considering the big picture. They could be creating an ecological monster out of the soil itself because of blinkered good intentions.

I think if they replicate those qualities in wheat, corn, soy, rice, cotton, canola or other major agricultural crops so the plants have deep, indestructible cork-like roots they'd have to do more than just try to persuade real farmers to plant their seeds. They'd first of all have to be able to demonstrate the feasibility by producing, harvesting and processing those crops on a mass scale themselves for maybe 10 - 15 years so they can also discover and work out all the kinks with the roots and the soil itself that they haven't thought of yet.

Otherwise if they don't do that, and won't demonstrate the feasibility, they'll be creating nightmares for any mass scale production farmers who can be convinced to try it and then actually have to work with the soil and plant things in it.

My first concern would be what all growers know - that you can only sink just so many tough, near indestructible roots deep into the ground and leave them there before the ground turns into a woven mat of cork-like root material like a solid felt mat. When that happens nothing can live in it, it becomes dead, the soil can no longer be physically worked nor be able to grow anything more in it until the entire mat of roots has completely decomposed. With the manipulation these folks are working towards, that decomposition could take decades upon decades to happen and for the soil to become renewed and alive again, considering the tough cork-like consistency of the mat.

There are numerous additional disruptions and destructions that could happen in the soil, to the natural circulation of ground water and oxygen and to the biological ecology of the soil itself, to the beneficial aerobic bacteria and the flora and fauna that live in the soil under the surface and around roots and have important roles to play.

Anyway, those are just a few examples of my doubts but I hope to hear more about their experiments and results as they continue to work on their idea.

.

[NORTY FLATZ]

Yup, the LAST thing we should attempt is to mess around with things that are the way they're supposed to be...