“Synthetic Glycolate Metabolism Pathways Stimulate Crop Growth and Productivity in the Field”, 2019 (; backlinks):
Fixing photosynthetic inefficiencies: In some of our most useful crops (such as rice and wheat), photosynthesis produces toxic by-products that reduce its efficiency. Photorespiration deals with these by-products, converting them into metabolically useful components, but at the cost of energy lost.
South et al. constructed a metabolic pathway in transgenic tobacco plants that more efficiently recaptures the unproductive by-products of photosynthesis with less energy lost (see the Perspective by Eisenhut and Weber). In field trials, these transgenic tobacco plants were ~40% more productive than wild-type tobacco plants.