Plant breeders are trying to develop new crops that are better for farmers and for the environment. Most of the crops that farmers grow now are annuals, meaning that they die and have to be replanted every year. Recently, plant breeders created some hybrids between wheat plants and one of their wild relatives, a prairie grass called kernza. A hybrid species is the offspring of parents of two different species. Kernza is a perennial grass (it lives for more than one year). By mating regular annual wheat with kernza, breeders created a new hybrid wheat that is perennial. Breeders also created a hybrid between rye, a common grain that we make rye bread from, and one of its wild relatives, perennial rye, creating a new hybrid perennial rye.
Breeders want to improve the ability of wheat and rye to do photosynthesis. Photosynthesis it is the process by which plants take carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air and energy from the sun and convert it into food for the plant. A plant that can photosynthesize faster could potentially have more available resources, which should help it produce more seeds, make more green tissue (food humans and livestock), and survive through more than one year.
In an experiment at Michigan State University, researchers measured photosynthetic rates in hybrid perennial wheat and hybrid perennial rye plants and compared them to photosynthetic rates in annual wheat and rye. To do this, they measured photosynthesis in five plants of each type: perennial wheat, annual wheat, perennial rye, and annual rye.
photo credit: J.E.Doll/KBS-MSU
The worksheets are as follows:
- Teacher’s Guide
- Student Worksheet, Graph Type A, Background/Content Level 4
- Student Worksheet, Graph Type C, Background/Content Level 4
Data provided by and written by GK-12 Fellow Nikhil S. Jaikumar