In a side discussion at the "Innovation in Agriculture and Food" seminar within the framework of VinFuture 2025 Science and Technology Week, Professor Raphaël Mercier - molecular geneticist and Director of the Chromosome Biology Department at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Genetics, Germany - shared his perspective on increasing sustainable and resilient food production in the near future.
Technology helps increase productivity by 20-30%.
Professor Raphaël Mercier's research is focusing on the molecular mechanisms of meiosis, particularly the regulation of the formation and distribution of crossing over, and how these processes shape genetic diversity in plants. He has identified key genes such as FANCM, RECQ4, and FIGL1, which act as anticrossover factors, thereby providing new strategies for regulating recombination and promoting plant breeding.
He also pioneered the development of the MiMe system (mitosis instead of meiosis), transforming meiosis into a mitotic-like cell division, enabling the production of clonal seeds—a significant breakthrough in maintaining the vigor of hybrids in crops such as rice.
Sharing specific details about the solution of creating clonal seeds to improve crop yields, Professor Raphaël Mercier said: In nature, some plants do not need fertilization or pollination to produce seeds, such as dandelions. Their petals help disperse the seeds, a mechanism that could be useful for agriculture.
Asexual reproduction is based on mitosis, not meiosis and fertilization as in traditional methods, but rather "simplifies the process of meiotic division" to create two copies of the gene. F1 hybrids are healthy and do not require quality control of the parent plants, only of the hybrid itself.
Asexual reproduction allows for the preservation of desired traits and the rapid creation of pure lines, usable for many crops, thus supporting farmers. In particular, the creation of clonal seeds helps maintain the strength of hybrid varieties without the need for re-crossbreeding over many generations. When applied to agriculture, it can increase yields by approximately 20-30%.
Application to Vietnamese rice
Vietnam is one of the world's leading rice exporting countries. Professor Raphaël Mercier suggests that Vietnam should continue to utilize all available technologies to improve quality and increase productivity, while also adopting new agricultural models.
"I believe that new technologies should be researched, adopted, and adapted to suit Vietnamese agriculture in order to improve yield and quality," said Professor Raphaël Mercier.
In the laboratory, Professor Raphaël Mercier and his colleagues are primarily working with a small plant called Arabidopsis (a genus belonging to the cabbage family). The team has also developed the technology for rice cultivation and is conducting several field trials to assess its practical effectiveness. This is the final step before bringing the technology to practical application.
After 15 years of research, from natural to clonal plant breeding, Professor Raphaël Mercier sees a trend toward more efficient utilization of hybrid varieties. Plants will grow vigorously on their own, yielding higher productivity. As a result, to produce the same amount of food, farmers can use less land or less fertilizer. In other words, because high yields are determined by the plant's genes, environmental impact can be reduced while maintaining the same production volume.
In addition, hybrid varieties are more tolerant of fluctuations, such as temperature or water availability. They are more resilient, thus maintaining high yields even under less than ideal conditions.
Compared to purebred varieties, hybrid varieties yield about 30% more. This means that simply switching to a hybrid variety immediately increases yield by about 30% compared to a purebred variety. Furthermore, the environmental impact of production is indirectly reduced because with higher yields, farmers can produce the same output using less land and less fertilizer.
However, this expert also affirmed that this is just one technology in a larger 'toolkit' that we need to combine to address the challenges ahead. We need to utilize all available technologies to serve science in order to achieve goals, such as a 70% increase in productivity. For example, AI helps farmers reduce labor while making more accurate decisions.
Source: https://daidoanket.vn/cai-tien-cay-lua-viet-nam.html
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