During the day, starch is synthesized in the chloroplasts of leaves and stored as starch granules, before being degraded in the subsequent night. In Arabidopsis thaliana, starch granules are discoid in shape. Some mutants have round or elongated granules, yet all these mutants have a homogenous starch…

Obligate plant pathogens cannot survive without their host plant. Therefore, understanding how the plant and its microbiome respond to the obligate biotrophs has real challenges in making sure that the response that is being monitored is not an artifact of the experimental step up. A recent study by…

Plants are colonized by numerous beneficial microorganisms in the rhizosphere, including Pseudomonas fluorescens, that provide benefits including nutrient acquisition and pathogen protection. Host plants must tune their immune systems to restrict microbial overgrowth, while avoiding overstimulation of…

Research Data Management for plant scientists just got easier with the newly released PLANTdataHub. In this platform, you can register your data which will be organized in Annotated Research Contexts (ARCs). ARCS are Findable Accessible Interoperable Reproducible (FAIR) digital Objects which are the…

Review. Milestones in understanding phosphorus uptake, transport, sensing, use, and signaling Phosphorus (P) is an essential nutrient and critical component of nucleic acids, phospholipids, and other molecules. Yang et al. provide a historical (since 1996) overview of the processes controlling its…

A calcium-dependent protein kinase and an E3 ubiquitin ligase fine-tune rice immunity Mou et al. explore the growth­–defense trade-off in rice. https://doi.org/10.1093/plcell/koad265 Baohui Mou, Jiyang Wang, and Wenxian Sun China Agricultural University Background: Plants need to keep…

Chun, Fang, Savelieva, Lomin et al. explore the mechanism by which cytokinin signaling influences the size of rice panicle. https://doi.org/10.1093/plcell/koad257 By Yan Chun (淳雁), and Xueyong Li (李学勇) National Key Facility for Crop Gene Resources and Genetic Improvement, Institute…

By Aida Maric, PhD, Plant Physiology Assistant Features Editor Jurriaan Ton is Professor of Plant Environmental Signalling at the University of Sheffield in UK. He obtained his PhD at the Utrecht University in the Netherlands, where he studied plant-microbiome interaction in the lab of Prof. Corné…