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exception to all this, which was recently withdrawn 50 years later.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