Tag: Plant Nutrition

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 system plasticity has been long studied, with a wealth of insights into…

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 of a single system. Here, Bardhan et al. explore whether modifying the nutrient environment (hence root’s…

Roots have been described as the gut of the plant, as they are the main interface for nutrient and water intake from their surrounding environment. This interface is remarkably complex. Not only must the root allow for the proper diffusion of substances into the plant, but by virtue of being constantly…

While ammonium ions (NH4+) serve as important sources of nitrogen nutrition, higher concentrations are toxic and inhibit plant growth and development. In an attempt to understand how roots of rice plant adapt to high concentrations of NH4+, Jia and colleagues found the roots coil and adopt a helical…

The symbiotic association between legumes and nitrogen-fixing rhizobia leads to the formation of nodules in roots, which supply nitrogen to the plant in low soil nitrate condition. In contrast, the presence of high nitrate reduces nodule formation. Cytokinin (CK) biosynthesis plays a major role in nodule…

Last week, PSRW presented two review papers regarding host plant interactions with microbial populations, particularly for plant nutrient intake. Watt-Williams et al. utilize such knowledge for their paper, performing an RNA-seq dataset to identify a novel zinc transporter in Medicago truncatula. Zinc…

For centuries, carnivorous plants and the mechanisms they use to capture prey have been enigmas. While some clarity regarding the molecular mechanisms is beginning to emerge, Suda and colleagues have uncovered a vital role for calcium (Ca2+) signals in trap closure in Venus flytrap. The researchers…

Plants produce more root hairs (epidermal projections) in response to low soil phosphate and the detailed mechanism of this developmental response remains elusive. TARGET OF MONOPTEROS 5 (TMO5) and LONESOME HIGHWAY (LHW) are vascular specific bHLH proteins that work as a heterodimer to activate the rate…