Researchers in the Agronomy Dept at Cornell Discovered That

SOME PLANT PHYSIOLOGICAL RESEARCH BREAKTHROUGHS THE PAST 50 YEARS…….John D. Hesketh,,ARS/USDA, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champain,,2013.

Researchers in the Agronomy Dept at Cornell discovered that leaves on plants grown in the field had photosynthetic rates 2 to 3 times those for potted plants grown in greenhouses and growth cabinets at the time. Such rates responded up to full sunlight. Ogren and coworkers at the Univ. IL C.-U. confirmed the same thing in that they found that such leaf photosynthetic rates were associated with high biochemical rate constants. Mauney and coworkers in Tempe found similar photosynthetic rates for plants grown in nutrient culture under intense artificial lights. These findings destroyed those of the photosynthetic establishment in existence prior to 1960. Research at Cornell on corn canopy photosynthesis was somewhat invalidated later by measurements taken with enclosures that temporarily covered the crop, as well as with measurements taken using an improved Inoui aerodynamic method, with canopy photosynthetic rates declining at the higher light levels.

At the state agricultural research laboratory in New Haven scientists parleyed this kind of research into how differently what now are known as C4 and C3 plants behaved under the same kind of light conditions - in the early 60's. Leaves of C4 plants did not respire in light and CO2-free air whereas C3 leaves did. This and similar research in Hawaii on the first carbon product of photosynthesis led to the discovery of the biochemical C4 pathway by Roger Slack, a New Zealand biochemist trained in the UK and his plant physiologist colleague M. Hatch; both research team were working for the Sugar Cane Associations in Hawaii and Australia. The C3 biochemical pathway had been done by chemists at Berkeley (who pointed out at the time that US plant physiologists would have taken another 100 or more years to accomplish such a thing). The US plant physiological establishment seemed to be in disarray. Mabrouk El-Sharkawy at the University of Arizona and coworkers in Tucson correlated C4 photosynthesis with leaf Kranz anatomy, still in the early 60's; the US establishment immediately reported an exception to all this, which was recently withdrawn 50 years later. Mabrouk deserves a Nobel Prize for what he did. He held forth alone at a US photosynthetic establishment meetings in the mid to late 60's, describing his and the associated biochemical work cited above – few believed him, a young post-doc from Egypt. He was attacked for using outdated light measuring techniques similar to those used by the photosynthetic establishment prior to 1960 to disprove what they did; his critic and a lab manager at the New Haven were taken into the NAS for their contribution (?) to the research that Mabrouk reported. The US photosynthetic establishment was in total disarray in the 1960s; 50 years later review papers are being written by young US scientists about the relationship between C4 photosynthesis and Kranz Anatomy, without citing what Mabrouk did, which his associated Citation Classic paper dwelled on. Just when is the US photosynthetic establishment going to get it's act together?. Israel Zelitch, a strong member of the US photosynthetic establishment, did write numerous review papers and a book citing appropriate papers; as well as giving numerous speeches about all the above. All this led to Mabrouk's citation classic award by the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI), PA, 1986. Thank God for the Egyptians, the US agronomists, the Australian-Hawaiian Sugar Planter's Associaton scientists, as well as Israel Zelitch.

The above research has never been officially recognized by the American Societies of Agronomy or Crop Science, except for the ASA invited paper by the manager at New Haven early on describing what his scientists had done, published in the Agronomy J., for which he was taken into the NAS for his management skills; along with the critic who pointed out that Mabrouk had not measured light correctly in his studies (foot candles instead of light energy levels). Such reflected how our scientific societies supported innovative plant research at the time.

At another similar photosynthesis meeting, they were exposed to a speech by R Alberte published in the PNAS, with numerous coauthors who were plant geneticists that had sent seed for their chlorophyll mutants for light reaction studies. They didn't listen to his paper. Also Gene Guinn from the ARS talked about his work on starch and sugar accumulation in leaves exposed to elevated atmospheric CO2 and intense light. This was before the US Climate Change effort. They did not pay attention to Guinn's innovative research. Also not much attention was given to Gregorio and Maria Begonia's further studies on effects of atmospheric CO2 enrichment on starch and sugars in leaves of plants grown outside, using open top chambers at Jackson State University (for African Americans) in Jackson MS. Their open top chamber method was ridiculed by a paper in Science, by scientists who hadn't studied leaf starch and sugar levels in their Climate Change supported research.

In plant water relations, where all the research was done like that for photosynthesis, using potted plants growing under weak light; when confronted with controversial data (to them) from using field – grown plants, they held a big meeting defining scientific words, pointing out that the agronomists were using bad scientific terminology.

Juang Wang, a graduate student in crop science at the Univ. IL C.-U., excavated a tall-grass prairie soil profile to see where roots were growing, which he found in biopores and cracks, almost all in cracks for that soil type. When learning about it, members of a cult fostering plagiarism at a major root and water relations laboratory convened a symposium on it, before Wang's publication came out, summarized in a book. Review papers were quickly written about it elsewhere by participants, unsourced. What the symposium people missed was that their traditional long-term approach for studying plant water relations, especially root behavior, using plants grown in pots or bins, had been totally invalidated by the new information. The Australians ran with it with hard studies of roots growing in biopores and cracks in the field, with very original studies of how root hairs were involved in water uptake. Meantime the symposium host scientists did studies on how water stress might be involved in droughts associated with global climate change, using potted plants grown in greenhouses of their phytotrons. Their scientists still can't figure out what those working in the field are fussing about, happily retired after their review papers and book about roots growing in biopores and cracks. Effects of water stress on plants grown in prevailing and elevated air CO2 concentations are being done in Germany; US scientists apparently figured it was unimportant in their long-term expensive study.

Wang's study of roots in soil biopores and cracks hopelessly invalidated all past soil physic studies and theory; his crack research was eliminated from his paper to protect the careers of soil physicists not retired yet. Research was held back some, the Australians ran with it after learning about it in a review paper from the US that they published. The ARS's reputation was hurt.

Studies at Duke University by plant breeders on effects of day length and temperature invalidated earlier work in the ARS Borthwith and Hendricks lab, crop modelers who seized upon it for a rash of modeling papers did not fully understand the complexity of what was going on. Don't believe their predictions; as with all ecosystem modeling, more research needs to be done, which has been discussed elsewhere. Models must be able to predict the unexpected.

Much of the above was covered up by scientists involved in earlier invalid research; a manager in Australia massacred an associated paper published in their in-house journal to destroy the career of one scientist involved in all the above. In the process Roger Slack, a New Zealander British trained biochemist did not get credit for his amazing work. One of Ogren's Ph.D. students later committed suicide there. The scientists in Tucson tried to keep El-Sharkawy from getting his Ph.D. His many thesis and related publications there, as well as at Davis, California, were cited as much as his the Tucson one picked out for his citation classic by ISI. His Tucson Ph.D. Advisor was fired once after Nixon told the ARS to get rid of it's misfits, including those with tenure. The scientist involved was a misfit in that he participated in the above and other research breakthroughs. Scientists associated with a certain Western US Religion wanted their scientists to continue the above research, after eliminating everyone not in the church involved at the time, for which they were partially successful (on the elimination part). On a few occasions such silly behavior backfired, with disastrous results for those involved. Mabrouk spent his latest career at CIAT, Colombia, with a fancy title but low pay, because of his Egyptian color. All this at an International Lab given a mission to help underdeveloped colored people. The positions at the labs were hardship posts for whites, who had to be paid high salaries. Mabrouk may have been the only colored scientist in their effort.

In all the above, plant geneticists and biochemists did some wonderful research. However, Xiaokang Pan, who originally showed genome scientists how to store and retrieve massive amounts of data and who made early genomic comparisons of algae, Arabidopsis (a primitive research plant) and higher plants, is now working at close to the technician level finding parts of the genome associated with each gene. He developed the Gramene software used in gene mapping, after developing similar software for genomic information. His Gramene was stolen from him by an ARS manager for use in the Gramene and similar federal labs. Geneticists feel of course that computer scientists should help them as technicians. At the Boll Weevil Lab in Starkville MS, the entomologists felt the same way about their chemists, plant breeders and agricultural engineers. Strange things happen in a collaborative multidisciplinary approach; when a big discovery is made the dominant disciplines feels it is necessary to assume total credit for what is done. The human mind is such that after assuming such credit, everyone else is a technician, including some very famous scientists. Of course we have seen this in computer science where large fortunes have been amassed based upon what large private labs did. Thank god for the dedicated nerds who get their pleasure from what they accomplish scientifically. The plagiarizers need to understand how thrilling it is to make a new discovery. Of course, they get to enjoy spending research funds, and despite their incompetence, their graduate students will inevitably make major discoveries. The taxpayer would rather fund innovative scientists and their graduate students.

El-Sharkawy at CIAT did water stress studies at field sites set up at different elevations from sea level to the cool mountain top Cali where CIAT is located. In effect what he did at these locations was a climate change study involving temperature and water stress effects on plants. He screened cassava cultivars for leaf photosynthetic rates and yields, the way it should have been done more in the US. He found C4:C3 intermediates among species, which were discussed in a recent ARPP article and which contributed significantly to the international photosynthetic research effort. He has many papers about this research, as well as many associated review papers recently, which can be accessed easily using Google. Few such papers were in US agronomic or plant physiological journals. But they were in good international journals His best moment in the US was when he described his Tucson-Davis research to American Plant physiologists; most did not believe him. Robert Loomis, son of the famous Water Loomis was there with him, backing him up as his post-doc advisor.

The above innovative research was not supported at the time as it threatened the careers of powerful scientists who had done poor or irrelevant research. El- El-Sharkawy's Kranz anatomy – C4 photosynthesis association is only now being studied some 50 years later after a so-called exception was retracted, after being reported by famous members of the US photosynthetic establishment. How much more of this do the taxpayer's have to put up with? Why have scientific managers? The ARS supported the Boll Weevil eradication effort, based from the Boll Weevil Research Lab in Starkville MS. It was a multidisciplinary lab with chemists isolating and synthesizing the female boll weevil sex pheromone, a private company was involved in the synthesis and supplied pheromone for the eradication. The pheromone was used as a bait in male boll weevil traps developed by two Agricultural Engineers. A plant breeder inserted in the cotton plant resistance to the Boll Worm, which is the same as the Corn Ear Worm, which plant resistance had already been found for. All this greatly reduced the need to use chemical insecticides in cotton production in the US.

There also was an ARS Soil and Water team at the Boll Weevil Lab led by Don Baker which did early work on a materials balance model for the cotton plant, with particular emphasis on water use. Water stress studies had been done before that at the location by Russ Bruce and Romkins using rain protected plots and irrigation treatments. Subsequently leaf water potentials using a pressure bomb and leaf gas exchange rates using the Gaastra equipment (LiCor) to study effects of water stress on cotton leaf photosynthetic rates, leaf rates, plant phenology and yield. Ritchie, ARS, TX had done something similar earlier, except for the gas exchange and leaf water potential measurements. Light was measured on tracks at the ground surface to get light interception by the crop; the Evapotranspiration Equation used to calculate the crop transpiration and soil evaporation needs an estimate of light interception versus the crop LAI. Bobby McMichael, K Raja Reddy (and graduate students) and Bill Pettigrew were involved in this innovative research so vital to Global Climate Change and Ecological Research. Don Baker's group used the data taken by all these people to perfect the water budget of his crop model. This was a powerful modeling data base. James Jones produced the first materials balance model at N. C. State Univ. (Carbohydrate, Nitrogen and Water Balances); he worked on the cotton model at Miss State to help perfect the water budget part of the model. He later worked at the Univ. FL Gainesville on the model using a strong research approach.

There needs to be in Starkville MS a symposium on all the above, emphasizing how much it all contributed to Global Climate Change research with ARS funds. Also there needs to be emphasis on how much it contributed to ecological research. Mabrouk El-Sharkawy needs to participate, emphasizing his water stress x temperature research in Columbia, using experimental sites at different altitudes on the side of a mountain leading from sea level to that at the CIAT Cali site.

It is not clear that much further work is being done using these techniques in ecology or agriculture in the US. Australia and Germany are moving ahead fast. The ARS seems to have resources dedicated to it, but nothing much is being said about crop or ecosystem modeling. Much of the international modeling work had little research input like that in MS and FL; this ruined it's reputation among scientists.