Combination of several approaches for the cultivation of improved crops

As the world's population continues to grow, global demand for food is increasing. According to estimates by the United Nations, food production must double by 2050 to meet this demand. In addition, factors such as increasing urbanization and advancing climate change are leading to a shortage of fertile farmland. All of this ultimately leads to the real problem: there is a gap between agricultural productivity and the global demand for food and crops. To close this gap, the EU project "PhotoBoost" is developing strategies to increase photosynthetic performance and productivity using the example of food crops such as potatoes and rice.

Plants have the ability to convert high-energy sunlight into biochemical energy through photosynthesis and use it as an energy source for plant growth. However, photosynthesis in C3 plants is inefficient. The aim of the project is to increase the photosynthetic performance of important food crops and thus also their yield by up to 25 percent. To this end, individual strategies already established within the consortium will be combined with new strategies addressed within the project in order to specifically increase photosynthetic efficiency and productivity.

Fraunhofer IME in Aachen is coordinating the interdisciplinary project, which brings together the expertise of eight partners from Germany, the UK, Portugal, Spain, and the Philippines in the fields of synthetic biology, computational and systems biology, and applied plant research. As part of the project, Fraunhofer IME will research holistic approaches to improving carbon fixation and increasing yields in potatoes under various environmental conditions. Finally, cultivation trials in greenhouses and field trials will be carried out to evaluate the improvements developed within the project framework for increasing photosynthetic performance for different climate scenarios and locations.