Lowering the temperature for two hours every day reduces the height of corn without affecting seed yields, a Purdue study shows, a technique that can be used to plant plants in controlled environmental facilities in caves and former quarries.
Effect of temperature on corn growth Plant cultivation in isolated and closed environments will help prevent genetically engineered pollen and seeds from escaping to ecosystems and intersections with wild plants.
Cary Mitchell, professor of horticulture, said this technique could be very useful for growing GMO crops to produce high-value products such as antibodies for industrial and pharmaceutical industries that are plant-derived compounds from shoots.
Effect of temperature on corn growth "Corn grains can be engineered to produce proteins that can be extracted and processed into drugs, drugs and nutraceuticals such as important vitamins," he said. "This is a young industry, but what we are doing is showing that you can successfully grow high-value plants in the environment contained."
Mitchell described corn as a "good candidate plant" for industry because of the gift of seed plants and marked genomes, which can be modified in many ways. Using plants as a "factory" to produce bioactive drugs will be much cheaper than the current method that relies on cell culture from mammals, he said.
Effects of temperature on corn growth But raising corn - a towering plant that requires bright and hot light - in the dark, cold, underground mines presented challenges for Mitchell and later researchers - postdoctoral, Yang Yang and Gioia Massa. They installed a growth room with insulation and high-intensity yellow and blue discharge lights at a former limestone quarry in Marengo, Indiana, to test how corn would react to the environment in which conditions develop - light, temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide - tightly controlled. To their surprise, hybrid corn responded by growing "too good," Yang said.
"We spoiled the plants with luxurious conditions so that corn touched the lights before it was even tufted," he said.
To reduce the height of corn, researchers borrowed a trick used by the greenhouse industry to dwarf Christmas poinsettia. Using growth spaces that mimic the temperature and carbon dioxide levels of the Marengo mine, they drop temperatures up to 60 degrees Fahrenheit during the first two hours of each irradiation, the time when corn receives light. The temperature was returned to 80 degrees for 14 hours and then lowered to 65 degrees for eight hours of darkness.
The dip temperature dwarfed the stalk height by 9 to 10 percent and reduced the stalk diameter by 8 to 9 percent without significantly affecting the number and weight of the seed.
"This is a technique that can be easily carried out in mines or caves," Mitchell said. "This is an affordable, non-chemical way of taking GMO plants to harvest maturity without getting anything from pollen or seeds to the ecosystem."
He said that former mines could be the main location for growing high-value, transgenic plants because their natural coolness reduces the need for heat ventilation produced by the lights. High levels of carbon dioxide in mining also increase plant growth.
"Productivity in a controlled environment is superior to those in the field, and you can increase more than one type of plant per year," Mitchell said. "Controlled environmental agriculture will be one of the great movements of the 21st century."
Effect of temperature on corn growth Plant cultivation in isolated and closed environments will help prevent genetically engineered pollen and seeds from escaping to ecosystems and intersections with wild plants.
Cary Mitchell, professor of horticulture, said this technique could be very useful for growing GMO crops to produce high-value products such as antibodies for industrial and pharmaceutical industries that are plant-derived compounds from shoots.
Effect of temperature on corn growth "Corn grains can be engineered to produce proteins that can be extracted and processed into drugs, drugs and nutraceuticals such as important vitamins," he said. "This is a young industry, but what we are doing is showing that you can successfully grow high-value plants in the environment contained."
Mitchell described corn as a "good candidate plant" for industry because of the gift of seed plants and marked genomes, which can be modified in many ways. Using plants as a "factory" to produce bioactive drugs will be much cheaper than the current method that relies on cell culture from mammals, he said.
Effects of temperature on corn growth But raising corn - a towering plant that requires bright and hot light - in the dark, cold, underground mines presented challenges for Mitchell and later researchers - postdoctoral, Yang Yang and Gioia Massa. They installed a growth room with insulation and high-intensity yellow and blue discharge lights at a former limestone quarry in Marengo, Indiana, to test how corn would react to the environment in which conditions develop - light, temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide - tightly controlled. To their surprise, hybrid corn responded by growing "too good," Yang said.
"We spoiled the plants with luxurious conditions so that corn touched the lights before it was even tufted," he said.
To reduce the height of corn, researchers borrowed a trick used by the greenhouse industry to dwarf Christmas poinsettia. Using growth spaces that mimic the temperature and carbon dioxide levels of the Marengo mine, they drop temperatures up to 60 degrees Fahrenheit during the first two hours of each irradiation, the time when corn receives light. The temperature was returned to 80 degrees for 14 hours and then lowered to 65 degrees for eight hours of darkness.
The dip temperature dwarfed the stalk height by 9 to 10 percent and reduced the stalk diameter by 8 to 9 percent without significantly affecting the number and weight of the seed.
"This is a technique that can be easily carried out in mines or caves," Mitchell said. "This is an affordable, non-chemical way of taking GMO plants to harvest maturity without getting anything from pollen or seeds to the ecosystem."
He said that former mines could be the main location for growing high-value, transgenic plants because their natural coolness reduces the need for heat ventilation produced by the lights. High levels of carbon dioxide in mining also increase plant growth.
"Productivity in a controlled environment is superior to those in the field, and you can increase more than one type of plant per year," Mitchell said. "Controlled environmental agriculture will be one of the great movements of the 21st century."
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