The June 12 issue of Science has a focus on plants and heat that includes several excellent review and research articles. In a very interesting review, Singh Yadav et al. discuss the complex and fascinating question of how plants sense temperature, emphasizing both the biophysical nature of temperature perception and the dispersed nature of it […]
They May 29 issue of Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. B. similarly addresses the pressing questions of how crop plants will continue to feed the world in spite of the rapidly changing climate. This issue covers some of the same topics as the Science special issue on heat stress but goes beyond heat to cover drought […]
Root growth and branching is strongly tuned to environmental conditions including soil compaction, nutrient availability, and the presence of water, with auxin having a major role in regulating root architecture. Here, Roy et al. have demonstrated how auxin contributes to a suppression of root branching in a dry region, which is known as xerobranching (from […]
Paclitaxel (sold as Taxol) is taxane diterpene natural product of yew trees (Taxus spp.) and a potent stabilizer of microtubules that is effective in treatment of cancers. However, it has proven difficult to elucidate its biosynthetic pathway, and commercial production still relies on extracting an intermediate, baccatin III, from yew tissues. In an elegant new […]
Special Science Issue: Plants and Heat The June 12 issue of Science has a focus on plants and heat that includes several excellent review and research articles. In a very interesting review, Singh Yadav et al. discuss the complex and fascinating question of how plants sense temperature, emphasizing both the biophysical nature of temperature perception […]
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the publication of the first genome sequence of a plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, (see https://doi.org/10.1038/35048692). As this review by Bevan et al. observes, this exciting accomplishment was met with some skepticism by those who felt that it was not likely to contribute to crop improvement, and would detract from […]
Most food crops are relatively intolerant to soil salinity, yet globally soils are becoming increasingly salinized. This excellent review by Raza et al. pulls together the myriad approaches that are being used to develop salinity-smart crops. It starts with an overview of how soil salinity affects crops plants and some of the mechanisms that facilitate […]
As rice has expanded northwards from its center of origin, it has been exposed to deeper and longer periods of cold. Male fertility is particularly sensitive to cold. Song et al. designed a clever strategy to study mechanisms of cold tolerance. They subjected meiotic-stage cold-sensitive rice varieties to cold and at each generation selected panicles […]
Review: Gene discovery, from Arabidopsis to crops This year marks the 25th anniversary of the publication of the first genome sequence of a plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, (see https://doi.org/10.1038/35048692). As this review by Bevan et al. observes, this exciting accomplishment was met with some skepticism by those who felt that it was not likely to contribute […]