You're enjoying a bowl of green edamame, savoring the delicious flavor. But have you ever stopped to wonder why these pods are green? After all, we often associate chlorophyll, the pigment responsible for their color, with photosynthesis in leaves. Well, hold on to your edamame because research conducted by a team from the University of Illinois has revealed a surprising answer. It turns out that chlorophyll in soybean pods plays a vital role in the plant's photosynthetic process and significantly contribute to soybean yield.
Many people study photosynthesis in plant leaves, but since the pods and immature seeds (edamame) of soybean plants are also green, they are receiving chlorophyll and should be studied as well.
"My project was originally focused on optimizing photosynthetic efficiency by reducing leaf chlorophyll levels, which exceed the leaves' production capacity," said Young Cho, lead author and postdoctoral researcher for the Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency (RIPE) Project. "I noticed the green soybean pods and wondered about their role, but we had doubts about the extent of the pods' contribution given their location below the top canopy."
Unlike soybean pods, barley kernels and wheat grain are at the very top of their respective plants, so previous studies showing they have a significant effect on yield were unsurprising. What Cho and the Ort Lab team found, and recently published in Plant Physiology, was that pod and seed photosynthesis account for a remarkable 13 percent of the final seed weight (yield) and nine percent of the overall photosynthesis occurring in the soybean's canopy.
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