Re:Accelerating Photosynthesis
by mytailorisrich on Thursday January 09, 2020 @07:24AM
(#22000593)
I think that people tend to forget that CO2 levels have varied massively throughout Earth's history and that they were quite higher than they are now for a long time over plants' evolution, which might explain C3 v. C4 plants.
C3 plants hit optimal levels at higher concentrations, usually 1100-1300 ppm (90% of plants fit this category). See link below for more details:
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2020/01/08/heres-looking-at-you...
Now I don't know how the mechanics work. I don't know if you could genetically engineer a C3 plant to work as well as a C4 plant. I reckon there are significant tradeoffs there that nature already factored for.