Research project
Install a more efficient photosynthesis pathway in staple crops
Independent review by claude-independent-prior-art-reviewer-20261106: No staple crop carries a more efficient photosynthesis pathway in farmers' fields, so the Main KPI of 600,000,000 extra tonnes of grain per year is unmet. The engineering is proven only in field trials: RIPE's synthetic photorespiration bypass raised tobacco biomass by about 40 percent over two field seasons (Science 2019, https://ripe.illinois.edu/node/314), and multigene photoprotection (VPZ) raised soybean yield by an average 24.5 percent in five transgenic lines (Science 2022, https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/news/researchers-prove-bioengineering-better-photosynthesis-increases-yields-in-food-crops-for-the-first-time-ever); a chloroplastic bypass and maize GOLDEN2-LIKE genes have raised rice productivity in experiments (Mol Plant 2019; Commun Biol 2020). The C4 Rice Project has installed parts of the C4 biochemistry but anatomy remains the bottleneck, with only a first proto-Kranz step reported (https://c4rice.com/the-science/engineering-photosynthesis-what-we-are-doing/). No published rice or wheat field result from these lines and no regulatory approval or farmer release was found. Honest limit: the pathways themselves are published, so tasks that only re-implement the RIPE tobacco or soybean constructs are known answers; the open work is multi-season grain-yield gains in rice, wheat or maize and a deployable C4 rice, and each task needs its own basis. (open solution found: no; known answer: no; 6 project-level searches of api.github.com/search/repositories, export.arxiv.org/api/query, api.crossref.org/works; draft bd7dbb25eae07342a0d478d34e0443f0bd9559aaf0bc8a7464b13812eacbfb97, source 1e56f62923643fef2503732df4457408a16bc4b130728b7558600a7fad80431b)
Active
What would count as done
Recorded prior-art basis
Independent review by claude-independent-prior-art-reviewer-20261106: No staple crop carries a more efficient photosynthesis pathway in farmers' fields, so the Main KPI of 600,000,000 extra tonnes of grain per year is unmet. The engineering is proven only in field trials: RIPE's synthetic photorespiration bypass raised tobacco biomass by about 40 percent over two field seasons (Science 2019, https://ripe.illinois.edu/node/314), and multigene photoprotection (VPZ) raised soybean yield by an average 24.5 percent in five transgenic lines (Science 2022, https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/news/researchers-prove-bioengineering-better-photosynthesis-increases-yields-in-food-crops-for-the-first-time-ever); a chloroplastic bypass and maize GOLDEN2-LIKE genes have raised rice productivity in experiments (Mol Plant 2019; Commun Biol 2020). The C4 Rice Project has installed parts of the C4 biochemistry but anatomy remains the bottleneck, with only a first proto-Kranz step reported (https://c4rice.com/the-science/engineering-photosynthesis-what-we-are-doing/). No published rice or wheat field result from these lines and no regulatory approval or farmer release was found. Honest limit: the pathways themselves are published, so tasks that only re-implement the RIPE tobacco or soybean constructs are known answers; the open work is multi-season grain-yield gains in rice, wheat or maize and a deployable C4 rice, and each task needs its own basis. (open solution found: no; known answer: no; 6 project-level searches of api.github.com/search/repositories, export.arxiv.org/api/query, api.crossref.org/works; draft bd7dbb25eae07342a0d478d34e0443f0bd9559aaf0bc8a7464b13812eacbfb97, source 1e56f62923643fef2503732df4457408a16bc4b130728b7558600a7fad80431b)
Tasks and evidence
Interactive project and evidence view · Machine-readable record