Plant Sciences

Question 1

What is the first GM crop to be grown?

Answer 1

Tobacco

Question 2

What are the main factors that plant science brings us?

Answer 2

• Food security and nutrition
• Water security
• Energy security
• Medicine and pharmacology
• Environmental sustainability
• Wealth redistribution

Question 3

Briefly explain who norman borlaug is and how he is father of the ‘green revolution’

Answer 3

Developed semi-dwarf, high yield varieties of wheat

Question 4

What percentage of the planets land is highly degraded?

Answer 4

25%

Question 5

How is climate change affecting our food security?

Answer 5

Temperatures are exceding survival thresholds of crop, tree and fish species

Question 6

What percentage of total primary energy is fossil fuel based and how does energy affect our food security?

Answer 6

85%

Modern food systems are heavily dependant on fossil fuels

Question 7

Roughly how many people in the world suffer from chronic hunger?

Answer 7

1 billion

Question 8

What percentage of the world have crop losses due to pests and pathogens?

Answer 8

40%

Question 9

How many global deaths are from cancer or cancer related inless annually?

Answer 9

8 000 000

Question 10

There are many benefits that GM can bring to us. What are some negatives?

Answer 10

• Commercial interests
• Loss of ecological diversity (herbicide/pesticide/fungicide resistant crops
• Gene transfer to wild relatives

Question 11

What is the causative agent of the irish potato famine?

Answer 11

Phytopthora infection

Question 12

Describe the N2 fertiliser

Answer 12

• Accounts for 5% of global energy (and is increasing)
• Allows for 3-4x increased crop yield
• Its expensive
• 2/3 of applied N2 is lost to the environment

Question 13

Plants have high metabolic diversity. What does this mean?

Answer 13

Naturally produce anti-microbial and anti-herbivory compounds

Question 14

In drug discovery, why would you start with natural products?

Answer 14

• Pre-screened in folk medicine (ethnopharmacology)
• Active in the cell
• Higher chance of biological activity
• Combinatorial effects
• Community benefit

Question 15

In the bio-industry, why are plants used as medical bioreactors?

Answer 15

• Many post-translational modifications are maintained, can also be ‘humanised’
• Maintain stereochemistry
• Cheap to grow
• Store as seed when needed
• Edibility
• Interleukin, Interferon

Question 16

In energy security, with the use of algae (dirty water) and waste CO2, what can be produced?

Answer 16

Oil

Capture waste NPK from agricultural run off and remove heavy metal pollutants

Question 17

What is meant by phytoremediation?

Answer 17

Using plants natural abiltiy to take up toxins in their cells
Can be used to clear up waste/contaminated grounds on farmlands, sewage etc.

Question 18

Why would industrial ‘pink’ houses be used?

Answer 18

-Increase output per unit area
-High value/nutritious crops
-High yield
-Low carbon footprint
10% of water use of ‘normal’ farming

Question 19

What is the use of urban greening?

Answer 19

• Improve air quality
• Insulation
• Water run off migration
• Air cooling
• Improve mental health
• Potential for city farming

Question 20

Are plants aware? Conscious? Intelligent?

Answer 20

• Perceive light from UV to infra-red
• Detect and differentiate touch
• Smell/taste more than any animal
• Conduct electrical impulses and have glutamate receptors
• Long and short term memory