If you've ever conducted a germination experiment, you've probably asked yourself: what causes seeds to germinate at different times? The most obvious answer would be to point to genetic differences, but this phenomenon also occurs in genetically identical seeds. In this exciting paper, Sharma and Majee…

The phytohormone ethylene is known for its importance in plant development and mostly for its role in fruit ripening. However, in this review Huang et al. summarize recent findings on ethylene’s role in temperature (hot and cold) stress response and ethylene crosstalk with other hormones. Interestingly,…

Different breeding programs worldwide have developed various cultivars that can cope with changing and increasingly unpredictable environments while meeting market needs. These developments have brought a new challenge: creating tools to distinguish such varieties and trace their genetic purity. Using…

In plants and algae, excessive light can damage the photosystem and lead to a decrease in photosynthetic capacity, a process called photoinhibition (PI). Levin et al. showed that Chlorella ohadii isolated from the Negev desert in Israel lacks or has limited capability of the usual photoprotection mechanisms…

Cellulose is an important and useful biopolymer, present in plant cell walls and synthesized at the plasma membrane by protein complexes called cellulose synthase complexes (CSCs) composed of multimers of cellulose synthase (CESA). CESAs are embedded in the membrane and move along the membrane as they…

Water uptake by roots is controlled by two factors: the architecture of the root system, and its hydraulic capacity. The later property is largely determined by the anatomical and physiological properties of the root cells, which include things like suberization and the presence of aquaporins (regulated…

Low temperatures quickly and reversibly inhibit photosynthesis, which is assumed to shield the photosynthetic system from a drop in metabolic activity brought about by cold. In a recent study, Cano-Ramirez et al. found that in Arabidopsis, a nuclear-encoded sigma factor (SIG5) controls chloroplast transcription…

Insect sex pheromones, volatile molecules used to attract mates, are used commercially to disrupt breeding behavior of insect pests and can be a good alternative to harmful pesticides. These pheromones have been produced in plants at a low amount and shown to be released as volatiles, but their production…