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Reminder to everyone: Plants are green(On earth) because they reflect the green color (which the sun spectrum is strongest) because they have probably adapted

Reminder to everyone: Plants are green(On earth) because they reflect the green color (which the sun spectrum is strongest) because they have probably adapted to better regulate different lightning condition during the day, for this they use two different pigments (chlorophyll a(blue), chlorophyll b(red); or other pairs)

setopt 2y ago
One of the best ways to improve crop yields via genetic engineering might be to create black plants.
- al_borland 2y ago
  If that was optimal, I would expect it would be the standard by now. Not through genetic engineer, but through basic evolution over millions of years.
  - ianferrel 2y ago
    Evolution is optimizing for survival, not crop yield.
    - buzzm 2y ago
      Exactly; see pollinators comment above. Although as tech progresses... perhaps we can make black plants as attractive to genetically modified pollinators. Do I sense a slippery slope here?
    - bawolff 2y ago
      Having more energy available (all things being equal which they aren't) is advantous to both survival and crop yields.
      - aydyn 2y ago
        only if more energy doesnt come at the cost of something else, like water retention
  - RoyalHenOil 2y ago
    That will only be the case if light absorbence is the primary limiting factor for the plant. If something else is a bigger limiting factor (e.g., nutrients, pests, water, temperature, pollinators, and so on), then a more darkly colored plant will not be meaningfully more likely to survive and reproduce than its lightly colored neighbors. Outside of human-directed breeding, we typically only see darkly colored plants in locations with low light and with few other evolutionary pressures: deep understory tropical plants, for example. Meanwhile, in locations with high light and other evolutionary pressures, plants can sometimes evolve to be quite pale. For example, desert succulents are often very light colors because they need to deflect light to keep cool and preserve water.
  - setopt 2y ago
    I honestly doubt it’s in a global optimum, as evolution is easily stuck in decent local minima. Simple example: “C4 carbon fixation”, which allows photosynthesis to proceed with much less water available, only evolved ~30 million years ago. This was the revolution that allowed modern grasses to emerge, and thus changed enormous barren deserts into the savannahs that early humans made their home. Despite being such an improvement, this is not yet a “standard”; trees, for example, still use the “old” inefficient “C3 carbon fixation”. Despite photosynthesis having been around for hundreds of millions of years, fundamental improvements still happened just 30 million years ago. I would suspect that there is more that can still be improved.

setopt 2y ago

One of the best ways to improve crop yields via genetic engineering might be to create black plants.

al_borland 2y ago
If that was optimal, I would expect it would be the standard by now. Not through genetic engineer, but through basic evolution over millions of years.
- ianferrel 2y ago
  Evolution is optimizing for survival, not crop yield.
  - buzzm 2y ago
    Exactly; see pollinators comment above. Although as tech progresses... perhaps we can make black plants as attractive to genetically modified pollinators. Do I sense a slippery slope here?
  - bawolff 2y ago
    Having more energy available (all things being equal which they aren't) is advantous to both survival and crop yields.
    - aydyn 2y ago
      only if more energy doesnt come at the cost of something else, like water retention
- RoyalHenOil 2y ago
  That will only be the case if light absorbence is the primary limiting factor for the plant. If something else is a bigger limiting factor (e.g., nutrients, pests, water, temperature, pollinators, and so on), then a more darkly colored plant will not be meaningfully more likely to survive and reproduce than its lightly colored neighbors. Outside of human-directed breeding, we typically only see darkly colored plants in locations with low light and with few other evolutionary pressures: deep understory tropical plants, for example. Meanwhile, in locations with high light and other evolutionary pressures, plants can sometimes evolve to be quite pale. For example, desert succulents are often very light colors because they need to deflect light to keep cool and preserve water.
- setopt 2y ago
  I honestly doubt it’s in a global optimum, as evolution is easily stuck in decent local minima. Simple example: “C4 carbon fixation”, which allows photosynthesis to proceed with much less water available, only evolved ~30 million years ago. This was the revolution that allowed modern grasses to emerge, and thus changed enormous barren deserts into the savannahs that early humans made their home. Despite being such an improvement, this is not yet a “standard”; trees, for example, still use the “old” inefficient “C3 carbon fixation”. Despite photosynthesis having been around for hundreds of millions of years, fundamental improvements still happened just 30 million years ago. I would suspect that there is more that can still be improved.