This article is about an investigation that could help every farmer who spends too much money in their seeds. This happens because plants are reproduced sexually and not asexually so they need too much seeds. Jean-Philippe Vielle-Calzada, a plant researcher at the Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute in Irapuato, Mexico is trying to convert the plants that reproduce sexually to a plant that reproduce asexually. Vielle- Calzada on March 7, 2010 published that he is one step behind to discover how to convert plants in asexual reproduction. He investigate “apomixis” that is a type of asexual reproduction and it is used by plants to make seeds without mixing an egg and sperm. Apomixis is like cloning the plants and having all of their chromosomes, not only half like if they are in sexual reproduction. Vielle- Calzada is trying to introduce apomixis into plants that don’t have it. They started by identifying the genes that are in the ovule of a plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, and when they were doing that they founded Argonaute 9, it is a gene that controlled what a cell makes if RNA or proteins. Argonaute 9 was a wonderful discovered because Arabidopsis thaliana didn’t have this it. Then of founding these he mutated the Argonaute 9 and he saw that the ovules that had this produce instead of only one gamete many of them and this is abnormal, with this they didn’t had to go to meiosis because they are many to do the job of carrying the genetic material. With this investigation they found out that Argonaute 9 doesn’t let the appearance of apomixis in this plant and that maybe all of the plants that are sexual can have apomixis but Argonaute 9 don’t let them appear. He also, found out that Argonaute 9 chewed 2600 RNA and that they are produced by jumping genes, so he realized that the jumping genes are the ones that don’t led the apomixis appear.
He discovered only this but he is still investigating for see how to change a sexual plant into asexual, but he is almost there. This affects mostly farmers in a beneficial way, because they had to buy many seeds and it is really expensive so they need that their plants self-pollinate or something like that for they don’t have to buy a lot of seeds. We had to care about this because if we want to buy the product of those plants it would be cheaper, it is easier to export and it can have more production so many families that don’t eat well can use it and it can be an important base for our feeding. This can change the way of feeding and the food of many people because many people that couldn’t buy these products now can buy them. Also, to the farmers they would save money and the costumers can buy things cheaper. This article is related to science because they are experimenting with the genes of a plant to discover something helpful to our lives. The investigation that is doing Vielle-Calzada is helpful for everyone because it could be easier for farmers to have many plants and they save a lot of money and they can be cheaper to customers and to export that products and plantations. This is only harmful to the plants because the plants are sexual for a reason and we couldn’t play with their genes making what we want only for our goodness and maybe the plants can be affecting and maybe this can produce secondary effects.