Category: Blog

Brassinosteroid hormones (BRs) play significant roles in plant growth and development. Que et al. examined BR accumulation and the expression of genes involved in the biosynthesis, signalling and catabolism of BRs in carrot (Daucus carota), a phytonutrient-rich crop. A key finding is the increase in…

Local adaptation and plant fitness (how plants perform on those localities) are strongly influenced by the seasonal timing of germination and flowering. Germination timing affects when a plant flowers and the selective environment under which flowering occurs. The other way around is also true, timing…

The nematode Heterodera schachtii is a parasite of the sugar beet.  Understanding how H. schachtii parasitizes the plant is crucial to develop tools to minimize infestation and crop losses.  From the H. schachtii transcriptome, the authors identified the sequence of a putative secreted effector protein…

Editorial: Introducing Plant Direct Editor-in-Chief Ivan Baxter introduces the new journal Plant Direct, “a new journal from Wiley and the societies behind Plant Physiology, The Plant Journal, and The Plant Cell” [that is, the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) and Society for Experimental…

Potassium (K+) retention in the roots and shoots is correlated with increased tolerance to salinity and drought. However, in response to salt stress, K+ efflux  from roots is induced. Shabala investigates three possible reasons for this stress-induced K+ efflux: K+ could leave to charge-balance the…

Editor-in-Chief Ivan Baxter introduces the new journal Plant Direct, “a new journal from Wiley and the societies behind Plant Physiology, The Plant Journal, and The Plant Cell” [that is, the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) and Society for Experimental Biology (SEB)]. This new Open Access…

The canonical auxin-response pathway in plants begins with auxin sensing by F-box proteins, triggering degradation of AUX/IAA proteins that act as transcriptional repressors via their interaction with sequence-specific DNA-binding AUXIN RESPONSE FACTORS (ARFs; reviewed in Weijers and Wagner, 2016).  Recently,…

ZZZZZZ…even the smartest scientists struggle to follow very dense science writing. Choksawatdikorn/shutterstock Zoe Doubleday, University of Adelaide As research scientists, we read a lot of scientific papers. But it may surprise you to learn that a lot of the time we – yes, we scientists…