Millions of people in Asia are dependent on rice as a food source. Believed to have been domesticated as early as 6000 BCE, rice is an important source of calories globally. In a new study, researchers compared domesticated rice to its…
The humble quillworts are an ancient group of about 250 small, aquatic plants that have largely been ignored by modern botanists. A group of researchers have sequenced the first quillwort genome and uncovered some secrets of the plant’s unique method…
Genetic detective work has uncovered an obscure ancestor of modern bread wheat, in a finding similar to uncovering a famous long-lost relative through DNA analysis in humans. Researchers have sequenced the DNA from 242 unique accessions of Aegilops tauschii gathered over decades from…
An international team of researchers has identified genes associated with plant survival in one of the harshest environments on Earth: the Atacama Desert in Chile.
Plants need sunlight to survive. Researchers have discovered that when plants are grown in the shade, they turn on hundreds of stress-related genes. The researchers found that a specific group of proteins called WRKYs are responsible for stunting root growth…
A research team has observed that the role of plant tissue – the endosperm – is not only to feed the seed but is crucial for the development and protection of young plants.
The potential of intercropping with perennial plants in woody systems to mitigate climate change through soil carbon sequestration could increase in the long term, once the new crops are fully developed and stabilised. The ongoing nature of the research would…
To enable fast, efficient and cost effective bioengineering of plants, new tools and methods to deliver the genetic material into plant cells are increasingly being researched. Nanoparticles assisted delivery of biomolecules is one such under explored tool for their application…
What we cannot see is how plants sense force, at least not yet. But a discovery by plant biologists will help make it possible to study how mechanical forces, such as gravity, affect the way that plant cells form and…
Fruits can be dichotomously classified as fleshy or dry. Although many factors have been proposed to explain the pattern that the fleshy-fruited species occur with deceasing latitude and altitude, the relative importance of these factors has not yet been resolved. Researchers…