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Harnessing the Power of CRISPR in Hydroponics · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hello and welcome back to Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
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  I'm your host Dr. Russell Sharp and today we're talking about CRISPR.
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  Unfortunately this is not crisps if you're in the UK or potato chips if you're in America.
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  CRISPR is a gene editing technique that is also termed molecular scissors.
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  So it's genetic engineering but it's not genetic modification.
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  So it's not GM, but it's skirting pretty close to it.
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  So CRISPR and Cas9, to give it its full name, is a highly precise,
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  cost-effective gene editing tool.
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  And it was originally discovered in bacteria as an immune response, as an immune system.
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  And it allows scientists to target and cut specific DNA sequences,
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  enabling the removal, addition, or the alteration of genes far faster and more
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  precise than traditional breeding methods.
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  So you think about cutting genes or turning genes off, mutating them,
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  that could be done by mutation.
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  So you could put a mutagen, a chemical that mutates DNA around a plant and that's
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  been done for centuries with plants.
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  However, you can't target that to specific genes and so it's random.
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  This one is specific to specific genes. So you're not putting in foreign DNA
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  and that's crucial that's why it's not genetic modification in the.
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  Conventional sense as we know it so you're not putting in say the gene from a rat or a,
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  jellyfish into a maize plant or
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  something like this or you know glyphosate resistance into
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  maize or cotton it's just messing around
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  with the DNA that's already in there cutting splicing deleting
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  adding the genes that are there so
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  we won't go into the details of how you do crispr
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  cas9 because it's beyond the
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  skill of a any grower no matter
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  how good they are master grower you have to be a molecular biologist
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  to do crispr and you have to be have at least a master's degree in molecular
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  biology so but having said that they are using it in plant science to modify
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  hydroponic crops and this will become more common in the future.
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  So it's good to know what are the potentials of CRISPR crops.
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  Obviously could be really good for hydroponics
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  because all of the plants really have been
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  bred for outdoor or greenhouses so
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  you could have tailored nutrient uptake they could be engineered to
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  absorb nutrients more efficiently in a water-based system they
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  could have compact growth for vertical racking denser
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  cassettes of leafy growth leafy greens so tomatoes that
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  were say 40 centimeters tall instead
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  of you know five meters tall improved disease
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  resistance improved disease resistance so reducing
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  pesticide needs in sort of recirculatory systems
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  increased stress tolerance especially heat salinity
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  oxidative stress things like this to increase
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  your yields and then some examples tomatoes
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  have been edited to knock out the gene dmr6 which
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  allows the plant to be more resistant to bacterial and
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  fungal pathogens rice which is
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  not a hydroponic crop but that's had improved water
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  use efficiency and highlight stress which could be useful in any led systems
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  and then a really big one potatoes have been crisp bar edited for blight resistance
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  and so if you think about potatoes potato blight is the biggest constraint on production worldwide.
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  So imagine hydroponic lettuce, basils and peppers engineered for stronger yields,
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  vibrant pigments and longer shelf life. So that would be the dream, wouldn't it?
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  You could think about things like legal cannabis that's been edited to produce
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  more resin, for example, that would be a big one.
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  So it's not just about survival, you can improve crops. So you could have carotenoid-enhanced
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  tomatoes and peppers for increased colour and nutrient value.
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  You could have lettuce plants with high GABA levels.
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  So that's a gamma-aminobutric acid, which is a health-giving compound that's
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  in a lot of plants. I think it's good for brain function.
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  You could have low-antinutrient grains.
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  So things like lentils, if you don't cook them properly.
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  Kidney beans they can they can inhibit
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  the absorption of proteins in the stomach things like this or you
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  could have you know potatoes you could eat raw things like this you know so
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  that'd be an interesting one so crispr can
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  be paired with speed breeding which we've talked about in the
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  past controlled environments where you can have more than one breeding
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  cycle per year so you could accelerate new cultivars
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  so hydroponics could be used to in combination with
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  crispar to develop new wheat varieties new maize varieties
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  obviously these are not going to be going into hydroponics for
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  production but you could use the CRISPR and the speed
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  breeding of the hydroponics to accelerate the breeding
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  of conventional crops which with a growing population and environmental degradation
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  we're going to need so that's one to look at and then obviously we've got safety
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  regulation and acceptance and in the eu CRISPR edited plants are currently regulated as GMOs.
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  In other regions CRISPR lines with no foreign DNA may be non-GMO potentially
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  accelerating their adoption.
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  So public acceptance will hinge on acceptability of labeling and demonstrating
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  clear benefits such as high nutrition, less pesticides and lower energy costs.
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  So if I was looking to develop a CRISPR crop the first thing I would do is not
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  do what they did with GM crops and have the first products to go into market
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  being just those resistant to glyphosate so you could put more and more pesticides on the land.
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  You'd want one with a clear human benefit.
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  So maybe one that had a benefit for a crop that could be used to help cure a
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  certain disease or something like this.
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  So expect more precision-tailored cultivar lines coming to the market to fit
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  hydroponic systems with less disease and more.
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  Bioactive compounds in them, so in certain regions you'll find CRISPR becoming more and more popular.
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  You could even see CRISPR-based sensors where plants signal stress in real time.
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  So you could have a few sensor plants amongst your crop and then they give off
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  a signal, like a heat signal or a certain wavelength of light and stuff like
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  this. Or, you know, there's all options there.
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  You could do gene edits for nitrogen fixation in non-legume hydroponic crops.
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  So you wouldn't need to add nitrogen, which is bad for the environment.
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  You could even look at crops that traditionally can't be grown hydroponically,
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  could be grown hydroponically such as quinoa moringa things
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  like this what we call what do you call them like dicot
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  cereal crops so you know like
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  um buckwheat and things like this so there
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  could be some interesting hydroponic crops around there so crispar
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  offers a powerful tool to optimize hydroponics for efficiency
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  resilience and quality when combined with controlled environments they
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  could even be used to um accelerate the
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  breeding of broad acre crops so
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  thank you very much for listening to this episode today it's one that's
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  not particularly applicable to hydroponics as of today but could be something
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  i thought i would do an episode on it because it's going to be more and more
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  common and you're going to hear the word crisper more and more commonly in the
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  news and in the hydroponic press and things like this so just to let you know
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  where it's coming from it's.
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  Molecular genetic scissors cutting up adding and moving around the dna in a
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  plant in a controlled way.
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  A bit like mutation, but very much controlled. It's not genetic modification
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  because it's not the addition of foreign genes, but it is gene editing.
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  It is biotechnology in that sense.
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  If you've got any questions, you think I've missed anything obvious,
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  or you think I've missed a big fundamental flaw of CRISPR or a big worry,
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  then let me know. And I'm more than happy to include it.
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  That's been Hydroponics Daily for today. Until tomorrow, thank you very much for listening.