Special feature: Harnessing crop diversity Don’t miss this excellent set of articles on the topic of crop diversity, organized by Susan McCouch, Loren Rieseberg, with Pamela Ronald. It includes five perspectives and six research articles, on topics such as breeding technologies and international policies. As the editors observe, having a very narrow range of crop […]
Plant Physiology Webinar: How Respiratory Energy Can Drive *Everything* Celebrating the April 2023 Focus Issue on Respiration Recorded Thursday April 6, 2023 About this webinar Respiration is central to plant metabolism and consumes roughly half the carbon fixed by photosynthesis. As the climate warms, rates of respiration will increase, which has implications for plant […]
Few topics are as inherently interesting from both fundamental and applied perspectives as salt tolerance in crop plants. From the basic science side, cells have several strategies that they use to keep Na+ levels low in their cytosol in spite of what can be a very steep concentration gradient from out to in. Furthermore, at […]
Like all organisms, plants respond to changes in temperature by activating pathways that enable them to stay alive in spite of rising or lowering temperatures. Interestingly though, there is no universal temperature sensing mechanism across the domains of life. Changes in membrane fluidity (think of melting butter) are common sensors, as are rates of reactions […]
The vertebrate adaptive immune system is truly an evolutionary marvel. With its ability to mix-and-match segments of immunoglobulin genes, a nearly unlimited diversity of antigens can be recognized. Plants lack this ability, greatly limiting the number of antigens (and pathogens) any individual can recognize. Kourelis et al. did a “what if” experiment; what if plants […]
Review: Salt-tolerant crops: Time to deliver Few topics are as inherently interesting from both fundamental and applied perspectives as salt tolerance in crop plants. From the basic science side, cells have several strategies that they use to keep Na+ levels low in their cytosol in spite of what can be a very steep concentration gradient […]
On January 6, 2023, the plant community was deeply saddened by the passing of Dr. Todd C. Mockler, Member and Geraldine and Robert Virgil Distinguished Investigator at the Danforth Center since 2011. Todd was a wonderful colleague, collaborator, and friend to so many of us. He was a scientist-entrepreneur who had a positive impact on […]
Rubisco (ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase) is one of a kind, simultaneously recognized as one of the most abundant and important enzymes, and also widely characterized as flawed because it uses both O2 and CO2 as substrates, leading to both carboxylation and oxygenation of ribulose bisphosphate. When CO2 is used as a substrate, the carbon is fixed […]
Plants synthesize interesting chemicals that attract, deter, amuse, and harm their predators. Some of the most harmful to humans have been selectively eliminated through the process of domestication, but others render potential food sources inedible. This review by Liu et al. discusses four approaches to increasing harvest index (product per plant) by selectively removing phytotoxins […]