full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Joanne Chory: How supercharged plants could slow climate change

Unscramble the Blue Letters

So why would farmers want to buy seeds if it's going to impact yleid? So we're not going to let it impact yield, we're going to always have chekcs and balances that says go or no go on that experiment. And then the second thing is, when a plant actually makes more carbon and buires it in the soil like that, almost all the soils on earth are actually dlpteeed of carbon because of the load from agriculture, trying to feed eight billion people, which is what lives on the eatrh right now. And so, that is also a problem as well. Plants that are making more carbon, those soils become ehinecrd in carbon. And carbon-enriched soils actually hold nitrogen and they hold sulphur and they hold phosphate — all the minerals that are required for platns to grow and have a good yield. And they also retain water in the soil as well. So the suberin will break up into little particles and give the whole soil a new texture. And as we've shown that we can get more carbon in that soil, the soil will get darker. And so we will be able to mesruae all that, and hopefully, this is going to help us solve the problem. So, OK.

Open Cloze

So why would farmers want to buy seeds if it's going to impact _____? So we're not going to let it impact yield, we're going to always have ______ and balances that says go or no go on that experiment. And then the second thing is, when a plant actually makes more carbon and ______ it in the soil like that, almost all the soils on earth are actually ________ of carbon because of the load from agriculture, trying to feed eight billion people, which is what lives on the _____ right now. And so, that is also a problem as well. Plants that are making more carbon, those soils become ________ in carbon. And carbon-enriched soils actually hold nitrogen and they hold sulphur and they hold phosphate — all the minerals that are required for ______ to grow and have a good yield. And they also retain water in the soil as well. So the suberin will break up into little particles and give the whole soil a new texture. And as we've shown that we can get more carbon in that soil, the soil will get darker. And so we will be able to _______ all that, and hopefully, this is going to help us solve the problem. So, OK.

Solution

  1. checks
  2. buries
  3. earth
  4. plants
  5. enriched
  6. depleted
  7. measure
  8. yield

Original Text

So why would farmers want to buy seeds if it's going to impact yield? So we're not going to let it impact yield, we're going to always have checks and balances that says go or no go on that experiment. And then the second thing is, when a plant actually makes more carbon and buries it in the soil like that, almost all the soils on earth are actually depleted of carbon because of the load from agriculture, trying to feed eight billion people, which is what lives on the earth right now. And so, that is also a problem as well. Plants that are making more carbon, those soils become enriched in carbon. And carbon-enriched soils actually hold nitrogen and they hold sulphur and they hold phosphate — all the minerals that are required for plants to grow and have a good yield. And they also retain water in the soil as well. So the suberin will break up into little particles and give the whole soil a new texture. And as we've shown that we can get more carbon in that soil, the soil will get darker. And so we will be able to measure all that, and hopefully, this is going to help us solve the problem. So, OK.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
climate change 3
photosynthetic microbes 2
crop plants 2
feel pretty 2
buy seeds 2

Important Words

  1. agriculture
  2. balances
  3. billion
  4. break
  5. buries
  6. buy
  7. carbon
  8. checks
  9. darker
  10. depleted
  11. earth
  12. enriched
  13. experiment
  14. farmers
  15. feed
  16. give
  17. good
  18. grow
  19. hold
  20. impact
  21. lives
  22. load
  23. making
  24. measure
  25. minerals
  26. nitrogen
  27. particles
  28. people
  29. phosphate
  30. plant
  31. plants
  32. problem
  33. required
  34. retain
  35. seeds
  36. shown
  37. soil
  38. soils
  39. solve
  40. suberin
  41. sulphur
  42. texture
  43. water
  44. yield