By 2050, we’ll have to meet the gargantuan challenge of growing 50% more food, to feed a burgeoning global population. Enter climate-resilient agriculture, possibly the best chance we have of actually attaining this goal: as countries grapple with the effects of climate change—drought, higher salinity—increasingly we’ll have to depend on crops that can also flourish despite its inconsistencies.

Research on agricultural resilience abounds, but the latest offering looks to plant genetics for a solution, bringing us a little closer to the goal of hardy crops. Plant cell biologists at the University of Oxford have discovered a gene that can be harnessed to give plants in a laboratory setting more resilience, making them thrive instead of whither when unfavourable conditions strike.

The research, published this week in the print edition of Current Biology, revolves around a gene known as SP1, which is entwined with the makeup of all plants, and plays a regulatory function in photosynthesis.

To carry out photosynthesis, plants depend on chloroplasts within their cells, which in turn rely on an influx of proteins to work—a kind of cellular traffic that the SP1 gene is tasked with controlling. But when a plant is stressed, a malfunction occurs in this photosynthetic machinery. “One of the undesirable consequences of too much photosynthesis under stressed conditions is the overproduction of toxic molecules called ‘reactive oxygen species’,” says Paul Jarvis, plant cell biologist at Oxford University, and author on the new paper. This causes a build up of toxins in the strained plant, which leads to its untimely death.

To stop that accumulation occurring, photosynthesis must be slowed during times of stress—and the Oxford researchers discovered they could do this by using the SP1 gene to reduce the passage of proteins into the chloroplasts. “We found that if you alter the activity of SP1 you can modify the extent to which photosynthesis takes place,” Jarvis explains.

He and his co-researcher, Qihua Ling, a post-doctoral research associate at the university, tested the idea by creating conditions that simulated high salinity and dryness, and then comparing responses to these conditions in three different groups of cress plants: normal wild cress, cress engineered to lack SP1, and another engineered to over-express the gene. “What we found was that the plants with high levels of SP1 were more tolerant of several different stresses,” Jarvis explains. Those SP-loaded plants photosynthesised less, produced fewer of the associated toxins under stress, and so were more resilient to environmental flux.

There’s a chance the plants may be trading photosynthesis for survival, potentially compromising their overall productivity. But SP1 functions in ways that aren’t fully understood yet, and it’s also possible that it might only intensify its responsiveness in times of stress, according to Jarvis. Plus, he notes that there are viable ways of reducing this potential compromise—namely, engineering plants to express SP1 only when they’re under pressure.

Right now the research is at the preliminary stage, but in the future, it could form part of a toolbox that enables us to breed tougher, more climate-ready crops—a challenge of growing pertinence, as we face the looming threat of lowered yields.

“Food security is on everybody’s minds,” says Jarvis. “We have an issue with population growth, and we’re losing in the region of 50% of yields to consequences of stress. So with that backdrop, it becomes exciting if you can identify a gene that potentially could mitigate that loss.”

Jarvis and his colleagues are now applying their discovery to other plants like tomatoes, brassica, wheat, and rice—the latter two especially, because they’re staple crops for billions globally.