Plants produce a huge variety of specialized metabolites, many with roles in defense. Metabolic profiles rarely follow phylogenetic lines; in fact, closely related species often produce dramatically different suites of metabolites. When it comes to defense chemistry, it is advantageous to be different from your neighbor; species can carve out their own niche as a […]
Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) plants open their stomata at night, decreasing water loss and increasing water-use efficiency as well as drought tolerance. Males and Griffiths review the stomatal biology of CAM plants as compared to C3 plants. For example, CAM stomata are relatively insensitive to blue light, which is a powerful opening stimulus for C3 […]
Have you got a passion for plant science that you are eager to share? Do you have a favorite paper, experiment, topic, or method that you like to share with undergraduates? Have you found a clever way to engage students and stimulate their curiosity? We want to hear your ideas for new content for The […]
The seeds and fruits derived from the sexual reproduction of flowering plants constitute the major part of the human diet. Our capacity to generate sufficient crop yield is increasingly compromised by human population expansion, competition for land use, biodiversity loss, and global climate change. Hot days and heat waves are predicted to increase in frequency […]
From CIMMYT, by Brenda Wawa / February 23, 2017 “Smallholder farmers in eastern and southern Africa are facing a new threat as a plague of intrepid fall armyworms creeps across the region, so far damaging an estimated 287,000 hectares of maize. Since mid-2016, scientists with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and national […]
The high-quality sequencing of a quinoa genome brings new potential for global food security. “Quinoa was the staple ‘Mother Grain’ that fueled the ancient Andean civilizations, but the crop was marginalized when the Spanish arrived in South America and has only recently been revived as a new crop of global interest,” said KAUST Professor of […]
Today the BBSRC strategically funded John Innes Centre has announced a potential breakthrough in broccoli production that will aid in UK food resilience and global food security. Scientists at JIC are developing a new line of fast-growing sprouting broccoli that goes from seed to harvest in 8-10 weeks. It has the potential to deliver two […]
“A curiosity for disease and a passion to cure led Mezzalama to a career as a plant pathologist. While studying for an undergraduate degree in agronomy in her hometown of Turin, Italy, she visited nearby vineyards to study plant pathogens for the first time. “It was working in the vineyards where I first saw plant […]
In this Open Access article, Wullum Nielsen et al. explore the “innovation dividend” that comes from greater diversity. They point out that “maximizing gender diversity’s benefits requires careful management.” As examples, “motivating managers to voluntarily engage in the recruitment and training of underrepresented groups better supports the advancement of women and minorities”, and “Research also […]