b'Plant Breeding for Climate ChangeCarbon SequestrationThe CORemoval on a Planetary Scale (CRoPS) program at the Salk Institute for 2Biological Studies is developing crops to sequester carbon.Kristi CoxSIX YEARS AGO,all the professors in plant biology at the Salk Institute decided we wanted to work on climate change because we thought that was the biggest problem that we currently face, Wolfgang Busch, executive director of Harnessing Plants Initiative at the Salk Institute of Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, says. We obviously knew that plants are great at capturing carbon dioxide from the air through the process of photosynthesis and we started to think [about] what we could change in plants to make them better at storing more of this captured carbon dioxide for longer. With modern genetic technologies, the team at the Salk Institute knew that they could alter plant traits that would allow them to alter how carbon is stored. They chose the root system because if they increase carbon in the root, it couldWolfgang Busch, executive director of Harnessing Plants Initiative at the Salk Institute of be transferred to the soil and held longerBiological Studies, is working to move crops with key carbon sequestering root traits from out of the atmosphere. greenhouse to field. Over time, plants have built a carbon reservoir in the soil that is two to three times bigger than the entire carbon storebiomass means more carbon potentiallyof cork, also provides a protective barrier in the atmosphere, Busch says.stored longer term in the soil. for roots of plants. Suberin limits water Studies showed that carbon in root2. Root depthincreased depthand nutrient diffusion from the root to material is five times more likely to staymeans decreased microbial activity.the environment. Because it is very hard in the soil than carbon derived from theMicrobes decompose raw materials, sofor microbes to degrade suberin in soil, shoot or leaves.the deeper the roots deposit material inincreased suberin would increase the The team identified three traits tothe soil, the longer that material can staypersistence of carbon in soil.work on: there. To have a significant impact in carbon 1. Root biomass40% of the dry bio- 3. Biochemical composition of rootcapture, the team not only needed to mass of roots is carbon. Increasing rootsystemssuberin, the main componentachieve plant improvements in these 24/ SEEDWORLD.COMJUNE 2024'