Environment

Crop Bonanza

A new “speed breeding” method for growing common crops has the potential to help feed the world’s expanding population, scientists say.

Australian researchers write in the journal Nature Plants that they have developed a way of using specially calibrated LEDs to accelerate plant growth in spurts of up to 22 hours per day.

The technique allows them to grow six generations of wheat, chickpea and barley in a year rather than the single generation of those crops that farmers now can typically grow annually.

Scientists at the University of Sydney, the University of Queensland and the John Innes Center say the crops grown under far-red spectrum LEDs also look healthier than those grown in standard conditions.