Patent ID: 8598411

Claim:
A method for increasing above ground biomass in a plant species comprising the steps of: (a) transforming plants of a species with a nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleotide sequence encoding a DP polypeptide having at least 90% amino acid sequence identity to an amino acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NO: 2, SEQ ID NO: 4, SEQ ID NO: 13, SEQ ID NO: 15, SEQ ID NO: 17, SEQ ID NO: 19, SEQ ID NO: 21, SEQ ID NO: 23, SEQ ID NO: 24, SEQ ID NO: 25, SEQ ID NO: 26, SEQ ID NO: 27, SEQ ID NO: 28 and SEQ ID NO: 29, and wherein the nucleic acid sequence is operably linked to a shoot-specific promoter; (b) expressing said DP polypeptide from said promoter in the transformed plants of said plant species; and (c) selecting a transformed plant from the step (b) comprising said nucleic acid molecule, and which exhibits increase in above ground biomass as compared to an untransformed control plant of the same plant species.