Photosynthesis is nature’s most powerful carbon capture system, fueling life on Earth and inspiring new strategies for sustainable agriculture. In plants, The Calvin–Benson–Bassham cycle generates C3 carbohydrates but is inefficient at producing the two-carbon acetyl–coenzyme A (CoA), which is…

When drought strikes, plants struggle to survive. Growth slows, flowers appear too early, fruits drop prematurely, and harvests shrink. Scientists have long tried to engineer drought tolerance plants, but boosting this often comes with a hidden cost: stunted growth even when water is plentiful. This…

Drought is a major constraint on maize production, and understanding the underlying molecular regulators is key to breeding resilient varieties. Yang et al. investigated the role of the wall-associated kinase ZmWAK3 in maize seedlings and found it to be a negative regulator of drought tolerance. Loss-of-function…

Grapevine is an important crop in the food industry. Like other crops, cultivated grapevine benefits from wild relatives that can be used for genetic resource mining and cultivar improvement. Useful genetic resources include novel alleles and gene expression regulators for better growth and stress resilience.…

Review: How to evaluate the climate-mitigation potential of plant agricultural interventions Agriculture contributes substantially to climate change. Many agricultural interventions have been suggested as opportunities to lower this impact, through CO2 sequestration or through reducing emissions of…

Plant genomes contain hundreds of genes encoding receptor-like kinases (RLKs), which are membrane-spanning proteins with an extracellular perception domain and an intracellular signaling domain. Many RLKs have roles in identifying surface proteins of pathogens, some recognize specific signals from mutualists…

Receptor-like kinases (RLKs) are abundant genes that have diversified and expanded throughout plant evolution, with most plants having hundreds or more RLKs. In this exciting new paper, Ngou et al. decided to deconstruct the recognition sites of these proteins in order to be able to make predictions…

Plastids are more than photosynthetic compartments, they also are responsible for the biosynthesis of nine proteinogenic amino acids (which explains why animals, lacking plastids, must obtain these amino acids through their diet). In a new paper, Kuhnert et al. have identified a critical amino-acid…