The intensive effort, Rodriguez believes, will pay off by helping farmers meet future food demands. Modifying traits genetically is expensive, does not always work and generates a fair amount of consumer backlash. Improving crop production with the plant’s own microorganisms might be more successful on a host of fronts. Says Rodriguez: “We’re trying to duplicate the way it works in nature—using not genes but entire genomes from the plant’s own microbial community.”

This article was originally published with the title More Food from Fungi?.

7 Comments

1. 1. jtdwyer 04:50 PM 4/13/10

   Yes, as the population continues to increase unabated, protean from sea fish is being exhausted, as well as productive land for agricultural production of nutrients. Soylent Green, anyone?
   
   Are there no scientists studying effective and humane methods of human population reduction? This option, with all its attainable benefits, deserves the kind of serious consideration now given to dangerous global environmental engineering experiments.

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2. 2. scientific earthling 08:26 PM 4/13/10

   Scientists please don't do this. We already are the dominant idiot species on this planet. We have caused and drive the sixth extinction. Look around you are all the silly idiots you see worth having on this planet and add more.
   
   Please let Malthuses theory, which is absolutely correct come to its natural end. Don't delay the inevitable. No we don't need more food, we need less Homo sapiens.
   
   Think before you act.

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3. 3. jtdwyer 08:50 PM 4/21/10

   By the way, I understand that humans quite often become food for fungi...

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4. 4. pchavan2003 08:27 AM 5/11/10

   Well...i feel by altering the genome of any organism we're completely destroying the organism for our own beneficial use...have you ever thought of the organism which suffers eventually?? It shows that we're only being selfish and nothing else...we only want these things to be done for our benefit... thats it!

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5. 5. mmimic34 10:38 PM 7/2/10

   in response to mememine:
   
   obviously you have done no research into global warming.
   this gentleman on youtube was kind enough to put all the NASA satellite photos of the arctic for the last 20 yrs into a slideshow. you can clearly see the volume of ice has been decreasing and flowing out into the ocean over 20 yrs.
   
   a 5 yr old could look at this and tell you what is means.
   please wise up.
   
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3dYhC_AlYw

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6. 6. tichead 09:02 PM 8/9/10

   Please, PLEASE, don't let Monsanto, ADM, or Carghill know about this. They already screwed a few million hectares with runaway Canola...
   
   jtdwyer,pchaven: I couldn't agree more.
   
   jydwyer, scientific earthling: As we are unable to mitigate by our own intent the deleterious impact we are having on this planet, big, bad, momma earth will begin resetting the population thermostat without our help, humanly or otherwise. It just won't be us she culls. It will be our generations to come that will pay with their lives for the huge mess we are making today.
   
   What amount of short term corporate profit can justify the long term, and too often terminally permanent, damage to species with no say in the matter? It is as if one could offer a corporate executive the right amount of money to poison their infant child at the dinner table tonight, they would do it.

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7. 7. tichead 10:08 PM 8/9/10

   Dont't feed us more, we'll only multiply!

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