July brings delicious fruit harvests in the Northern Hemisphere, and a very special focus issue of Plant Physiology. I particularly like this issue because of the wide variety of species covered, starting with apple, banana, blueberry, cherry, citrus, and so on. It’s a nice departure from our usual “diet” of wheat, rice, and Arabidopsis. The […]
Organismal growth requires extensive coordination between cells and tissues with different identities, and this is particularly important for plants with their rigid cell walls and lack of cell motility. A key mechanism for tissue coordination involving brassinosteroids has been identified by Kelly-Bellow et al. They started by looking at a dwarf mutant (isolated from an […]
There are about ~17,500 plants species that can participate in nitrogen-fixing root nodule symbioses. The majority of these (~17,300) are in the order Fabales, which includes the legumes. The remainder fall into three orders (Rosales, Fagales, and Cucubitales), leading to the question of whether this ability in these outliers is derived from the same evolutionary […]
Some of the most fascinating discoveries in biology are found at the interface between hosts and pathogens, where each organism is endlessly fighting for its survival. Plant pathogens produce a wide array of effector proteins that promote their virulence, but we only understand how some of these effectors function. Here, Li et al. have uncovered […]
Review. CRISPR/Cas-mediated plant genome editing: Outstanding challenges a decade after implementation I’ll be honest, I was surprised to see “a decade after implementation” in this title, but indeed, the first publication describing CRISPR/Cas in plants was in 2013. We’ve learned a lot in the past 10 years and the technology provides many opportunities, but challenges […]
Plant Physiology Webinar: Fruit Crops (1) Celebrating the July 2023 Focus Issue on Fruit Crops Recorded Wednesday, July 12, 2023 About This Webinar Fruits are major sources of nutrients for humans, and fruit growing is a significant driver for economic growth and development in rural areas and their communities worldwide. The fruit industry faces enormous […]
Andrew D. Hanson is a professor at the Horticultural Science Department; University of Florida, in the USA. Andrew studied plant biology with a focus on medical biochemistry in the United Kingdom for his undergraduate degree. After completing his PhD, he secured his first industry job with a company, gaining valuable experience. Throughout his career, he […]
Lichens are remarkable, complex symbiotic organisms. They have evolved multiple times independently, but all lichen include at least one fungal partner (the mycobiont) which they usually resemble morphologically, and at least one cyanobacterial or algal photosynthetic partner (the photobiont). This partnership provides environmental durability plus the power of photosynthesis, making lichen pretty ubiquitous; they can […]
Like all of Earth’s lifeforms, plants are already experiencing hardships due to the changing climate, and these stresses will get more extreme. Much effort has gone into breeding crops for climate resilience, less on trees which are both more diverse and less genetically tractable. Here, Allsup et al. provide an interesting approach to enhance tree […]