UC reduces plant sizes

Small-stature tomato plants being developed by the University of California could benefit indoor urban agriculture, and could perhaps be grown on long-duration space flights.

UC Riverside said last week researchers have been studying different types of small tomatoes.

Robert Jinkerson, an assistant professor of chemical and environmental engineering, is working to engineer the size and nutritional value of tomato plants, to increase both the diversity and value of crops that can be grown in urban controlled-environment agriculture.

At the same time, Jinkerson and a colleague have been awarded a NASA Space Biology grant to evaluate tomatoes from their prior work with the International Space Station.

Regarding his studies of tomatoes for urban controlled-environment agriculture, Jinkerson said the CEA systems often grow plants in areas stacked vertically, to save space. That also decreases the height available for plant growth.

"In order to overcome these size limitations and to increase the variety of crops that can be grown in vertical farms, we are engineering tomato plants to have a small stature and that are optimized for this unique growing environment," he said.

Jinkerson uses CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing to modulate genes involved in plant development and architecture. The university said the project will also increase the nutritional value of crops, by enhancing their vitamin content.

In the NASA project, Jinkerson and Martha Orozco-Cárdenas, director of the UCR Plant Transformation Research Center, will spend several years testing plants engineered with gene-editing technology to grow in microgravity.

Known as Small Plants for Agriculture in Controlled Environments, or SPACE tomatoes, the plants will ultimately be grown "seed to seed," meaning seeds will be harvested and the next generation grown in space, completing a full life cycle.