News From the Field

Breeding higher yielding crops by increasing sugar import into seeds


November 2, 2015

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A mother plant's whole life is dedicated to producing sugars in its leaves, used by the plant's seeds to survive in the outside world. The amount of sugars that fill a seed directly determines the seed's size. NSF-funded researchers have discovered that a sugar-transport protein in maize and rice, called SWEET4, is both necessary for successful seed filling and shows genome changes that indicate domestication by humans.Full Story

Source
Carnegie Institution for Science

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