A new study has analyzed one environment-sensitive genic male sterile (EGMS) line that exhibited fertility transition under specified environmental conditions.
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After several years of experimentation, scientists have engineered thale cress, or Arabidopsis thaliana, to behave like a succulent, improving water-use efficiency, salinity tolerance and reducing the effects of drought. The tissue succulence engineering method devised for this small flowering plant can be used in other plants to improve drought and salinity tolerance with the goal of moving this approach into food and bioenergy crops.
When cells don’t divide into proper copies of themselves, living things fail to grow as they should. For the first time, scientists now understand how a protein called TANGLED1 can lead to accurate cell division in plants.
When we cut our fingers, blood rushes out of the wound to close it. However, the vegetable, we just wanted to slice and dice, would have reacted utterly different to this injury. Now scientists investigated how plant cells heal wounds. In their results the researchers discovered that the hormone Auxin and pressure changes are crucial to regeneration.
Citrus greening disease (Huanglongbing of HLB), transmitted by the Asian citrus psyllid, is currently the biggest threat to the citrus industry and is threat to many parts of the world. In Florida alone, citrus greening disease has accounted for losses of several billions of U.S. dollars. Despite HLB’s widespread prevalence, factors influencing the epidemic are poorly understood because most research has been conducted after the pathogen has been introduced.
In a world first, researchers have discovered a plant that has successfully evolved to use ants—as well as native bees—as pollinating agents by overcoming their antimicrobial defenses.
A team of scientists has developed a way to potentially thwart the spread of a disease-causing bacterium that harms more than 100 plant species worldwide, an advance that could save the nursery industry billions a year.
Some plants, like soybean, are known to possess an innate defense machinery that helps them develop resistance against insects trying to feed on them. However, exactly how these plants recognize signals from insects has been unknown until now. Scientists uncover how oral secretions of the cotton leaf worm trigger defense responses in a plant.
As a plant grows, it moves cellular material from its version of manufacturing sites to the cell wall construction zone. Transporter proteins, called motor proteins, are thought to move these cell wall cargo via a complex highway system made up of microtubule tracks. The position of these tracks must be stabilized so that cargo are delivered to the correct locations.
Soya and clover have their very own fertiliser factories in their roots, where bacteria manufacture ammonium, which is crucial for plant growth. Although this has long been common knowledge, scientists have only recently described the mechanism in detail. With biotechnology, this knowledge could now help make agriculture more sustainable.
