Get touchy feely with plants

Forget talking to plants to help them grow, gently rubbing them with your fingers can make them less susceptible to disease, a paper in the open access journal BMC Plant Biology reveals.

Eavesdropping plants prepare to be attacked

(Phys.org) —In a world full of hungry predators, prey animals must be constantly vigilant to avoid getting eaten. But plants face a particular challenge when it comes to defending themselves.

Drought response identified in potential biofuel plant

Drought resistance is the key to large-scale production of Jatropha, a potential biofuel plant—and an international group of scientists has identified the first step toward engineering a hardier variety.

Improving crop yields in a world of extreme weather events

Farmers in the United States witnessed record-breaking extremes in temperature and drought during the last two summers, causing worldwide increases in the costs of food, feed and fiber. Indeed, many climate scientists caution ...

How salt stops plant growth

Until now it has not been clear how salt, a scourge to agriculture, halts the growth of the plant-root system. A team of researchers, led by the Carnegie Institution's José Dinneny and Lina Duan, found that not all types ...

Bacteria pitted against fungi to protect wheat and barley

(Phys.org)—Soil-dwelling bacteria that depend on wheat and barley roots for their "room and board" could soon prove themselves helpful to the plants in return. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists in Pullman, ...

Screening technique uncovers five new plant activator compounds

A new high-throughput screening technique developed by researchers at the RIKEN Plant Science Center (PSC) has been used to uncover five novel immune-priming compounds in Arabidopsis plants. Discovery of the compounds, which ...

The Japanese disaster one year later

As the world remembers the horrors of the disaster on its one-year anniversary, experts at the Mailman School take stock of disaster response, nuclear fears and lessons learned

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