Researchers at the Salk Institute are developing soybean varieties with deeper root systems that could survive drought and lock away more carbon in the soil. Field trials in Illinois and other states are testing how much carbon these roots can store and whether the plants can maintain yields. The work is part of a larger effort to turn crops into a tool for climate change mitigation. The initial results suggest that if these deep-rooted crops were widely adopted, they could remove a gigaton of carbon dioxide per year by 2040. But the technology still needs to prove itself in real farming conditions, and getting new seeds to farmers quickly is a major challenge. The researchers are racing against time to scale up the solution.
