The phytotron, huge climate-controlled laboratories, once signaled the future of plant biology, allowing scientists to control to a specific degree any number of environmental factors. A name replete with space age wonder and futuristic hope, the phytotron disappeared, forgotten in a contemporary world. David Munns, in Engineering the Environment seeks to reveal this largely hidden history, as well as exploring what made phytotrons so vital in the first place, and their potential application in a world struggling with the implications of climate change.
From the first operational phytotron at Caltech under the tutelage of Frits Went, to facilities in Australia and North Carolina to the Biotron in Wisconsin and more recent developments in Michigan, Saskatchewan and London Munns takes the reader on a sweeping journey of this climatic technology.
Far more than just an account of the phytotron’s development however, Munns is upfront in framing his work through the lens of technological control that gripped science, and in particular biology after the Second World War. “Trons” in particular he writes “helped win the Second World War,” with the most important development being not the atomic bomb, but the “resonant cavity magnetron… was the heart of every radar set.” The new technologist biologist built broadly off of this technical explosion, using huge central computers to record, process, and interpret wide swaths of data. Furthermore, as Munns argues, in attempting to control plant growth through environmental factors, these new scientists were defining the very idea of what the “environment” itself meant.
Given the significance of this goal, and the clear contemporary implications of the phytotron in regards to climate change, its disappearance proves even more alarming. The decline of the phytotron Munns, largely points to, was a result of the rise of biotechnology in the 1970s and 80s. The gene, and genetic manipulation was sleek and sexy, seemingly able to provide all the answers to many of life’s questions. In the axiom of Phenotype=Genotype+Environment, the environment was quickly becoming forgotten. This coupled with the rising costs needed to maintain phytotrons, would ultimately be the nail in the coffin.
And yet, given the near totality of the erasure of phytotrons from the public consciousness, Munns proves overall optimistic, noting the re-emergence of facilities like the phytotron at the University of Saskatchewan built in 2011, the Plant Research Laboratory at Michigan State University, or Imperial College’s equally futuristic sounding Ecotron.This trend can broadly be attributed to the realization of limits of relying on genomic studies alone. In an abbreviated version of an anecdote in the book, a genetically engineered tomato designed to be the best looking and tasting can be undone if simply exposed to cold temperatures. A problem that the reductionism of molecular biology struggles with, but one that a phytotron can easily answer.
But rather than trying to make tastier tomatoes, phytotrons and their more recent incarnations have clearer implications in combatting climate change, a focus that Munns signals at the end of his work. Attempting to tackle a problem so large and daunting practically screams for the return of this once lost technology. Getting the whole picture is only possible through including a study of the environment.
Engineering the Environment proves to be an engaging, well structured and written work, illuminating the crucial role of the phytotron, and its place at the cross-roads of biology, technology and environment. A technology long forgotten but one with a hopeful future.
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noting the re-emergence of facilities like the phytotron at the University of Saskatchewan built in ...
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 29, 2017
