Multi-Research Team Converts Sugar Cane to a Cold-Tolerant, Oil-Producing Crop

摘要

A multi-institutional team led by researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign announced February 23 that they have increased sugar cane’s geographic range, boosted its photosynthetic rate by 30% and turned it into an oil-producing crop for biodiesel production. The latest milestones, presented at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) Innovation Summit in Washington, D.C., are the first steps in a bigger initiative aimed to turn sugar cane and sorghum – two of the most productive crop plants known – into even more productive, oil-generating plants.