Amanda P. De Souza, Steven J. Burgess, Lynn Doran, Jeffrey Hansen, Lusya Manukyan, Nina Maryn, Dhananjay Gotarkar, Lauribeth Leonelli, Krishna K. Niyogi, Stephen P. Long

More soybeans by light management

Plants protect themselves from too much sun by dissipating excess light energy. Unfortunately, the switch from dissipating light energy to using light energy for photosynthesis is not as nimble as the clouds moving across the sky. De Souza et al. applied a bioengineered solution that speeds up accommodation by nonphotochemical quenching in soybeans, a widely cultivated and essential crop. In field trials, seed yield increased in some cases up to 33%. —PJH

The paper "Soybean photosynthesis and crop yield are improved by accelerating recovery from photoprotection" was published in Science, Vol. 377, Issue 6608, pp. 851-854.