Aloe vera is a well-known plant species from the genus Aloe used throughout the globe in wide range of products from creams and soaps to drinks and over-the-counter products. The genus Aloe has been used in traditional medicine for centuries, and approximately 20% of the species are used locally in the regions they grow.
Tree roots commonly associate with fungi to exchange nutrients and improve their adaptation to changes in their environment. However, the biological processes at work in this mutually beneficial relationship (namely ectomycorrhizae) have not yet been fully explored. Now, researcher have demonstrated for the first time that the establishment of the symbiotic relationship between the model tree poplar and an ectomycorrhizal fungus is controlled by epigenetics.
Can the deathbed rally of a few dying cells save the rest of the body? New evidence from plants. The “deathbed rally,” the “last hurrah” — it’s not unheard of for living things to mysteriously perk up in the moments before death. It turns out that plants do it too, at least at the cellular level.
Researchers ahave recently discovered a new species of Fabaceae. The new species was named Astragalus bashanense.
Most people own houseplants and eagerly grow them on windowsills and shelves only to be disappointed when they wilt or die – new research has shown that the problem could be that we’re feeding them all wrong and we need to pay attention to the roots outside the soil.
Cassava is one of the most important crops in the tropics, feeding half a billion people in more than 80 countries. Cassava bacterial blight (CBB) is a devastating disease that causes crop losses worldwide. Research demonstrated that a new technology, epigenome editing, can reduce CBB symptoms in cassava plants while maintaining normal growth and development.
Delving deeper into organ development requires long-term monitoring of organ growth. Researchers have designed a novel approach that they employed to characterise growing leaves. Over several weeks scientists photographed more than 1,000 leaves at varying developmental stages. By applying targeted algorithms, they were able to reconstruct the complete story of leaf development.
Using commercial, high-resolution satellite images and artificial intelligence, an international team mapped almost 10 billion individual trees in Africa’s drylands to assess the amount of carbon stored outside of the continent’s dense tropical forests. The result is the first comprehensive estimate of tree carbon density in the Saharan, Sahel, and Sudanian zones of Africa. The data are free and publicly available.
How do plants defend themselves against pathogenic micro-organisms? This is a complex puzzle, of which a team of biologists has solved a new piece. They discovered that while the water pores (hydathodes) in leaves provide an entry point for bacteria, they are also an active part of the defence against these invaders.
A gene discovered could help fortify the defenses of sorghum to anthracnose, a disease of the cereal grain crop that can inflict yield losses of up to 50 percent.
