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Drought: Clear impacts on global agricultural production

By | Agriculture, Climate change, News

The effects of drought on major crops that are crucial to achieve both food and energy security. A global, more robust vision of this complex issue to advance the existing knowledge and support better informed, science-based decisions in the future, like fine-tuning crop calendars or implementing other measures as alternative cultivars, additional irrigation, and crop migration.

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Molecular Feedback-Loop for Plant Growth

By | News

Plant growth is not a uniform process: Plants grow in length at the shoot and root tip in particular, while in other places they form new leaves or flowers. These different processes must be coordinated with each another and at the same time react to external influences such as temperature and light. Scientists discover previously unknown mechanism that regulates the growth hormone auxin.

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From genes to plant microbiota

By | News, Plant Science

Like humans and animals, plants also have a microbiota. A research team studied whether the genetic variability within a plant species controls the composition of its leaf microbiota. The researchers planted more than 30,000 plants in experimental set-ups at four sites over two years to analyse variation in the leaf microbiota and reproductive success, estimated through seed production, of 200 genotypes of a model plant. Their results, show that genetic variation between plants has a particular impact on specific microorganisms, which in turn have a strong influence on the composition of microbial communities. This influence on microbial communities contributes to the reproductive success of different plant genotypes.

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Climate change is affecting when and how violets reproduce

By | Botany, Climate change, News

Violets reproduce both sexually, through cross-pollination of the showy flowers we’re familiar with; and asexually, by self-seeding of less noticeable flowers that remain hidden near the base of the plant. This is called “mixed mating.” Although environmental factors drive how much a plant reproduces sexually or asexually, no study had previously looked at the impact of climate change on mixed mating.

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