Most of our major food crops are annuals, started from seed each year and fully harvested to collect the seeds at the end of their short growing season. By contrast, perennial crops are longer lived, and only partially harvested, so their biomass can increase from year to year. The larger root system of perennials can […]
Photosynthetic capacity varies hugely within an individual over time, between individuals in different environments, and between species. Demming-Adams et al. review the processes that affect intrinsic photosynthetic capacity. Plants modulate their intrinsic photosynthetic capacity according to input (e.g., shade-grown plants generally have a lower capacity than plants growing in bright light), and demand (e.g., rate […]
The journal BMC Biology publishes occasional Question and Answer articles, including a series on plant signals. In the latest installment of this series, Dempsey and Klessig write about the hormone salicylic acid (SA) and how it combats disease in plants and humans. The article focuses on SA in plants (synthesis, signalling, and function) but the […]
A series of letters has been published in Nature Biotechnology on the topic of the US National Academies report Genetically Engineered Crops: Experiences and Prospects. From Dec 2016, US National Academies report misses the mark. In the April 2017 issue, authors of the report and others reply to the Dec letter: Elevating the conversation about […]
May 18th is the Fascination of Plants Day, and we want to help in this international effort to highlight the importance of plants and plant science. Therefore, we’re supporting the #BotanyLive e-event! In a nutshell, we’re asking planty folks (curious, enthusiasts, professionals) to share something about their fascination with plants online. We’re particularly recommending the […]
There are many subspecies of Brassica rapa [including turnip (subsp. rapa) pak choi (subsp. chinensis) and Chinese cabbage (subsp. pekinensis)] but the relationships between the subspecies has remained uncertain. Qi et al. sequenced 143 accessions, including some subspecies for the first time. They then used genomics approaches to develop a phylogeny. They corroborate their molecular […]
“Weeds are a fact of life for farmers around the world,” writes Kniss in this analysis of herbicide-use trends. He stresses the limitation of reports that measure only the weight of herbicides used, as there is tremendous variation in the toxicity of different herbicides. He shows that although herbicide use intensity has risen, for many […]
Most fruits form after pollination, making their production vulnerable to pollinator presence. Parthenocarpy is the development of fruit that occurs in the absence of pollination. Genes that enable parthenocarpy have been identified, including a tomato gene involved in auxin responses SlIAA9. Ueta et al. used CRISPR/Cas9 to efficiently engineer parthenocarpy into two commercial tomato varieties. […]
Plant parasitic nematodes, including root-knot nematodes and cyst nematodes, cause extensive damage and loss to many crops. Nematodes elicit a pathogen-triggered immunity (PTI) defense response, but the molecular basis for this response has not been previously characterized. Mendy et al. identified a leucine-rich repeat receptor-like kinase NILR1 that recognizes an as yet unknown nematode protein […]