An international research team is using advanced tools to develop crops that
give farmers more options for sustainably producing more food on less land.

"The method we developed allows us to measure improvements we have
engineered in a plant's photosynthesis machinery in about 10 seconds,
compared to the traditional method that takes up 30 minutes," said Katherine
Meacham-Hensold, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois,
who led the team for the project Realizing Increased Photosynthetic
Efficiency (RIPE).

The traditional method for assessing photosynthesis analyzes the exchange of
gases through the leaf. A faster, or "higher-throughput" method, called
spectral analysis, analyzes the light that is reflected back from leaves to
predict photosynthetic capacity in as little as 10 seconds. Before the
study, the team was unsure if spectral techniques can be used for plants
with genetically altered photosynthetic machinery. Now they can apply
spectral techniques to predict the photosynthetic capacity of genetically
modified crops.

[www.igb.illinois.edu]
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