I love learning about the many molecular adaptations that allowed plants to adapt to life on land, and particularly have enjoyed sharing the iconic micrograph from Remy et al (1994) that shows a 400 year old arbuscular mycorrhiza of the fungus Glomeromycotina  inside a cell of Aglaophyton major. Now,…

Plant photosynthetic machinery can easily be overwhelmed by strong sunlight. Therefore, plants developed a set of processes called Non-Photochemical Quenching, a safety valve that dissipates excess light energy as heat. In a recent review, van Amerongen and Croce synthesize decades of often contradictory…

Long-standing puzzles have perplexed scientists about the physiological tradeoff between drought resistance and crop production, and this review brings the pieces together. What, exactly, allows a crop to keep producing when water runs short? Should breeding focus on early stomatal closure and limited…

Oat (Avena sativa) is a globally cultivated cereal for its rich dietary fiber and health-promoting benefits. Yet, despite its nutritional importance, oat genomics has long lagged behind other cereals due to its large, repeat-rich, and allohexaploid genome which does not generally recombine. In a recent…

Climate change is a major threat to potato, as high temperatures inhibit tuberization and reduce yield. A recent study by Yeo and colleagues screened for heat-tolerance in offspring from one tolerant and one sensitive parent potato cultivar. SELF-PRUNING 6A (SP6A), encoding a phloem-mobile tuberization…

Plants store glucose polymers in semicrystalline starch granules. Starch debranching enzymes, including isoamylases (ISAs), are involved in maintaining starch’s crystalline organization. In maize, sugary1 (su1) mutants with impaired ISA1 enzymatic activity accumulate soluble polyglucan chains (phytoglycogen).…

The development of the 3D shape of an is complex, and the contributions of underlying pathways are difficult to untangle. Battu et al. decouple the organ size and organ shape by conducting a thorough quantification of organ geometry in 3D together with Principle Component Analysis (PCA), and using the…

Viruses spreading to crops via tiny insects is one of agriculture’s biggest problems. Liang et al. uncovered the two-part strategy used by the tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) to hijack the whitefly, Bemisia tabaci. It’s a double dose of manipulation designed to guarantee infection. The virus…