Yield is one of the most important agronomic traits and is determined by the interaction of specific genetics within the crops with environmental factors. An important approach to increasing yield potential is increasing overall plant productivity through increasing photosynthetic efficiency or resource utilization.
The Arabidopsis sequence AtHB17 (At2g01430, or G1543) encodes a member of the class II sub-group of the homeodomain-leucine zipper protein (HD-Zip) family of transcription factors. It triggers increases in chlorophyll levels when overexpressed in plants (U.S. Pat. No. 7,511,190).
The instant disclosure provides methods for altering the protein structure of AtHB17 and other class II HD-ZIP closely-related to AtHB17, i.e. introducing mutations to the EAR motif of the AtHB17 clade sequences and overexpressing those EAR mutation variants in plants to confer beneficial phenotypes.