Review: CRISPR screens in plants: Approaches, guidelines, and future prospects We don’t need to remind you of the tremendous positive impact that CRISPR-based technologies have had on the life sciences through enabling any gene to be edited precisely. Here, Gaillochet et al. provide an up-to-date…

Update: Lateral root formation and nutrients: nitrogen in the spotlight We marvel at the ability of starfish to regenerate an arm, or a lizard a new tail, but even more impressive than these feats is the ability of a plant root system to create lateral roots when and where they are needed. This root…

Review: Microbiota-root-shoot-environment axis and stress tolerance in plants ($) Roots and shoots exist in different environments and have different functions, but each depends on the actions of the other. In recent years, many factors have been identified that move from root to shoot or vice versa…

Review: Can smart nutrient applications optimize the plant's hidden half to improve drought resistance? The root system has three key functions: support/anchoring, uptake of water, and uptake of nutrients. Many questions remain about how roots integrate all of these functions into the architecture…

Review: Perspectives on improving light distribution and light use efficiency in crop canopies Light comes largely from above, and plants have evolved strategies to efficiently capture this light even when competing with other potentially shading plants. However, at a field-level, such competition…

Review: Plant evolution driven by interactions with symbiotic and pathogenic microbes One of the great questions in plant science has been, “How do plants recognize friend from foe?” Like most great questions, this one benefits from a historical perspective. In their new review, Delaux and Schornack…

Review: Time to wake up: Epigenetic and small-RNA-mediated regulation during seed germination Seed germination is a crucial step in plants' life cycle and has critical implications in ecological and agronomic contexts. Therefore, there has been an increasing interest in understanding the mechanisms…

Review: On tree longevity Everyone enjoys hearing about ancient trees that have been alive since various events in human history, but did you ever stop to wonder why some trees live for millennia and others don’t? If so, you’ll want to read this Tansley Review by Piovesan and Biondi. One of their…