Illustration of C4 grass stomata for studies on improved Water Use Efficiency in bioenergy crops (IMAGE)

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment

Illustration of C4 grass stomata for studies on improved Water Use Efficiency in bioenergy crops

Caption

This image of a C4 grass stomata illustrates how it opens to take up CO2 for photosynthesis but also loses water. CABBI studies in the Journal of Experimental Botany showed that reducing stomatal density in C4 crops improved water use efficiency (WUE) without affecting yield, but it coincided with the pores opening wider, offsetting some expected improvement in WUE. The discovery represents a valuable new target for engineering an even more efficient plant.

Credit

Daniel Lunn/Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation (CABBI)

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Please credit Daniel Lunn/Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation (CABBI)

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