Possibility of grain production even in the driest desert

This discovery has opened up new possibilities for scientists as the number of crops in fertile lands is declining in the adverse weather conditions of climate change. This research has created a way to know what kind of trees will increase in the warmer regions and how to take care of them.

The Atacama is one of the most rugged, arid, and hostile deserts in the world, north of Chile. On average, three to four times in a hundred years, rain falls on this barren land. Growing crops is therefore tricky here. But despite hundreds of adversities, life has somehow survived in this barren land. Around a thousand people are engaged in agriculture around the desert. It is thought to have been cultivated in this desert for thousands of years.

A group of scientists has recently tried to unravel the mystery of how plants grow even in such a dry, rough, and barren land. That mystery has been discovered in a new study. Scientists have found a genetic basis for adaptation that allows food crops to grow in the eroded and extreme conditions of the Atacama Desert.

Gloria Koruji, a plant systems biologist at New York University, said: “In this age of climate change, it is important to uncover the genetic basis so that nutritious crops can be produced in dry and hostile climates.” For more than ten years, Koruji and a team of international researchers have studied plant life at 22 sites in the Atacama Desert.

Plant and soil samples are carefully collected from the desert and taken to the lab; There, the pieces are stored by dipping them in liquid nitrogen for genomic analysis. A total of 32 of the most common plants found in the Atacama were collected. After genetic analysis, It compared the plants with 32 other plants from other places (closely related to desert plants). However, none of the plants in different areas was suitable for genetic adaptation to the Atacama environment.

In the following study, scientists found 265 genes that are likely to increase mutations in the Atacama. Then 59 more such genes were found. These genes can grow with the necessary nutrients from the desert by tolerating high-temperature radiation.

It is truly an unimaginable mystery to scientists. Scientists have also discovered the possibility of producing several types of food grains in the desert by solving this mystery of the birth and growth of plants in the most hostile environment in the world.

This discovery has opened up new possibilities for scientists as the number of crops in fertile lands is declining in the adverse weather conditions of climate change. This research has created a way to know what kind of trees will overgrow in the warmer regions and how to take care of them. “The work is directly relevant to the growing arid regions of the world,” said Rodrigo Guterres, another plant systems biologist at Pontifical Catholic University in Chile.

‘Some of the Atacama trees are directly related to staple food grains such as beans and potatoes; We have selected crop genes that can withstand high temperatures, droughts, and salinity,” he added.