With the constant struggle to improve agricultural yield and provide solutions for our impending global hunger problems, scientists are working harder than ever to discover new means to create more efficient agricultural processes.

A recent study has made a significant leap towards producing crops without any genetic variability, thus ensuring that all the crops in a given area will be of the highest quality.

This study utilizes the process of meiosis and mitosis by freezing cells after the first meiotic division. These cells undergo induced mutations that cause mitosis to occur after the first round of meiosis instead of after the meiosis II division. Two other modifications prevent genetic recombination and modify segregation as well. This ensures that the resulting egg is fertilized with pollen from the same plant (called MiMe, which stands for ‘Mitosis instead of Meiosis’), the resulting generation has the same DNA and strength as the parent generation.

This study will aid in creating super crops that will help save money as well as space on farms. When each individual crop produced is of equal superior quality, the most efficient agricultural yields will result. Because of the decrease in variability it will also be easier to provide pesticides and insecticides that target the plants in the same way, ensuring that the external conditions of the plants are also uniform.

Discussion Question: If variability can also be helpful, how might decreasing the genetic variability potentially harm these plants?

News Article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090608204055.htm
Research Article: http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000124