Category

Plant Science

Nov 08
13

Genetic engineering of chickpea to understand the mystery behind biochemical regulation in flower and seed coat colour of desi and kabuli genotypes

By | Agriculture, Blog, ECRi, Plant Science, Post

Flower and seed coat colour are important agronomic traits in chickpea that influence consumer preference. Based on their cultivation globally, this legume crop is categorized as “desi” or “kabuli”. Seeds of desi-type chickpeas are generally dark brown and angular with a rough seed coat, while the kabuli type produces light-brown coloured and rounded seeds with smooth seed coats. Recently, a group of scientists in India successfully developed a new genetically engineered selection marker-free stable chickpea line.

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Nov 07
3

Watching Plants Switch on Genes

By | News, Plant Science

Biologists often use green fluorescent protein (GFP) to see what happens inside cells. GFP, which scientists first isolated in jellyfish, is a protein that changes light from one color into another. Attaching it to other proteins allows researchers to find out if cells produce those proteins and where within cells to find them. This in turn shows how cells deliver and use genes.

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Nov 04
1
jimaro morales / Pixabay

Extreme Salt Stress Triggers Leaf Movement

By | News, Plant Science

Plant leaves can cope with much higher salt concentrations than roots. The underlying mechanism may help to develop more salt-tolerant crops. When there is a lack of water, heat or intensive irrigation, the level of common salt (sodium chloride) in the soil increases. However, most crops are sensitive to salt. They react to the increasing soil salinity by greatly reducing their growth. This leads to a reduction in the harvest.

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Nov 03
2

Documenting and making available the world’s crop diversity

By | Agriculture, Fruits and Vegetables, News, Plant Science

Genebanks play an important role in the long-term conservation of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. Out of 1,800 genebank collections worldwide, more than 600 are in Europe. This vast array of crop diversity can be exploited to make our crops more nutritious, productive and resilient to pests, diseases and environmental changes, only if we have information about it.

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Oct 20
6

If not, Winter: How a super-charged “Speed Vernalization” protocol accelerates flowering in winter cereals

By | Agriculture, Blog, ECRi, Plant Science, Post

As days grow colder and shorter, and many of us find ourselves entrenched in winter, you wouldn’t be mistaken for feeling a noticeable reduction in activity around you. However, in certain crops such as winter wheat and barley, this cold season holds the key to flowering in the spring. This well-studied process, called vernalization, requires the plant to sense appropriate conditions – i.e., low temperature and short day-length – usually early in development to “overwinter” through several inhospitable months.

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Oct 18
1

Insights into two rare types of photosynthesis could boost crop production

By | News, Plant Science

Researchers have studied how certain bacteria perform photosynthesis using low-energy light, which could be engineered into crops to boost production. By studying the way two bacteria perform the difficult chemistry of photosynthesis, a team has discovered the trade-offs they make when using lower-energy light. This could inform plant genetic engineering that aims to make crop and biomass production more efficient.

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