Ethylene boosts plant yield and vigor, study shows

Exposing seedlings to ethylene in darkness increases size and vigor, in a finding with implications for agriculture. Farmers have worked to increase crop yields for millennia, and the quest remains urgent as the human population ...

Researchers discover hormonal regulatory module for root elongation

In future, agricultural crop production will have to manage with less and less nitrogen fertilization. The goal must therefore be to increase nitrogen use efficiency so that yield levels can be kept stable. Plants respond ...

How roots find their way to water

Plants use their roots to search for water. While the main root digs downwards, a large number of fine lateral roots explore the soil on all sides. As researchers from Nottingham, Heidelberg and Goethe University of Frankfurt ...

Plant peptide helps roots to branch out in the right places

How do plants space out their roots? A Japanese research team has identified a peptide and its receptor that help lateral roots to grow with the right spacing. The findings were published on December 20, 2018 in the online ...

Groundwork for playing with the architecture of plants

Growing tomatoes at the same height so that they can be easily picked by a harvesting robot. Growing deeper roots where the soil is dry. These types of changes to plant architecture may well be enabled in the future thanks ...

3-D live imaging reveals how plants grow new lateral roots

Researchers have used 3-D live imaging to observe the formation process of lateral roots in plants, and clarified part of the mechanism that creates new meristematic tissue. If the root formation mechanism in plants is revealed ...

Container design important for endangered plant nursery

Recent research at the University of Guam has shown that the use of traditional hard plastic containers in a conservation nursery reduced the quality of the roots of an endangered tree species. The experimental results appeared ...

Getting to the root of nutrient sensing

New research published by Cell Press in the June 15th issue of the journal Developmental Cell, reveals how plants modify their root architecture based on nutrient availability in the soil.

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