CCMB scientists find key to second green revolution

In a breakthrough research that can help easy and cost-effective alternative to the plant breeding process of high-yielding hybrid crops, scientists at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) have found a gene responsible for transferring the combined traits of parent plants to next generation.

If their findings are taken to the logical end, a farmer can do without buying hybrid seeds to grow the high-yielding varieties forcing the seed companies to adopt new technology.

However, this will require another crucial step of finding ways to develop plant embryo without the usual fertilisation of egg cell before developing the actual applications.

Imran Siddiqi and his associates found a gene, named Dyad after the mutant Arabidopsis plant, a member of the Mustard family.

According to Siddiqi, the Dyad gene induces Apomixis, a process of asexual seed formation that avoids Meiosis (reproductive cell division) and fertilisation leading to the formation of seeds that are genetically identical to the maternal plant.

Meiosis is a precursor to seed formation in plants and in the process, the germ cells inherit only one of the two sets of chromosomes that belong to the chosen parents. This results in the loss of combined strengths of the parents.

Their scientific paper with the research findings, which took close to 12 years of work in CCMB, was published in the international scientific journal, Nature, on Wednesday.

"This could as well lead to a second green revolution," Lalji Singh, director, CCMB, told the media. Scientific research groups from Australia and the UK have already come forward to join hands with Siddiqi and CCMB in taking forward the present findings.

Though the phenomenon of Apomixis is not to be found in any of our foodgrain crops, it can be introduced by activating the gene or a set of genes that control this mutation, he said.

The application of Apomixis, according to the scientists, would lead to over 20 per cent higher yields across several of the major crop species.