New research by a public benefit company enhancing natural solutions in plants to improve carbon capture, Living Carbon, has demonstrated that trees enhanced by photosynthesis can capture 27% more carbon dioxide due to a faster growth rate and accumulation of 53% more biomass.
The findings, released in a whitepaper demonstrate in trees, the potential to capture more carbon in a shorter period of time and underscores the role of responsible biotechnology in rebalancing the planet’s carbon cycle.
The Living Carbon’s photosynthesis-enhancement research is intended to allow for commonly planted trees to photosynthesize with the same capacity as the most efficient 15% of plants.
Built on decades of research in the scientific community and collected over two years on multiple propagation cycles of photosynthesis enhanced hybrid poplar seedlings, the body of the research showcases how this enhanced genetic trait could be a living climate solution ready for large-scale deployment.
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The research analysis, which targets over 3000 acres of carbon projects with private landowners across the Southeast US, facilitatesa new ecological and economic age where advanced biotechnology will be used to deliver profitable and scalable carbon removal solutions.
The mission of Living Carbon which was Co-founded by Maddie Hall and Patrick Mellor, with the expertise of Chief Science Officer Yumin Tao is to meet the urgency of the climate crisis by using genetic engineering to build on billions of years of evolution to balance the climate in the timeframe we have.
According to Maddie Hall, “We have surpassed the point where reducing emissions alone will be enough to rebalance our ecosystems and stabilize our planet,”. “Now is the time for large-scale carbon removal”.
Living Carbon is building on what nature is already doing by asking the question, ‘are we capable of storing carbon with the same ingenuity that allowed us to release it?’ Some plants have naturally developed a similar method of photosynthesis efficiency increase, known as C4 photosynthesis, which relies on anatomical changes that are only possible in a certain group of plants.
Story was adapted from GlobaNewswire.
