+Paying attention to root growth and health would appear a given except it is said here that it has largely been ignored.
One needs to only understand that
for every pound of plant material above ground, it is helpful to have an equal
pound underground. This does not happen
in the early stages or with annuals per say, but is certainly the case for
trees in particular.
More importantly, real
improvement on root health and strength will come with the adoption of biochar
techniques. Elemental carbon acts both
as a nutrient collector and bank, but also as a soil conditioner that collects
toxins to lock away from the roots. I have been cheerleading this charge for
the life of this blog and will continue to do so.
Improving crops from the roots up
by Staff Writers
Nottingham
Plant root biology is essential for healthy plant growth and, while the
so-called hidden half of the plant has often been overlooked, its importance
is becoming increasingly recognised by scientists.
Research involving
scientists at The University
of Nottingham
In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), the researchers have shown
that they can alter root growth in the plant Arabidopsis thaliana, or thale
cress, by controlling an important regulatory protein.
Dr Ive De Smet, a Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research
Council (BBSRC) David Phillips Fellow in the University's Division of Plant and
Crop Science, said: "The world's population is increasing, and a new green
revolution is even more pressing to deliver global food security. To achieve
this, optimising the root system of
plants is essential and these recent results will contribute significantly to
our goal of improving crop growth and yield under varying environmental
conditions."
The work was carried out by an international team of researchers. Led
by scientists from the Plant Systems Biology Department in the life sciences
research institute VIB in Flanders, Belgium, and Ghent University, the study
also involved experts from Wake Forest University in the US and the
Albrecht-von-Haller Institute for Plant Sciences in Germany.
Plant root biology is essential for healthy plant growth and, while the
so-called hidden half of the plant has often been overlooked, its importance is
becoming increasingly recognised by scientists.
Despite this, particularly in view of the critical role plants play in
global food security, improving plant growth by
modulating the biological architecture of root systems is an area which is
largely unexplored.
In this latest research, the scientists modulated levels of the
protein, transcription factor WRKY23, in plants, analysed the effects on root
development and used chemical profiling to demonstrate that this key factor
controls the biosynthesis of important metabolites called flavonols.
Altered levels of flavonols affected the distribution of auxin, a plant
hormone controlling many aspects of development, which resulted in impaired
root growth.
The results of the research can now be used to produce new plant
lines, such as crops which are economically valuable, which have an improved
root system, making them better able to resist environmental changes which
could lead to plant damage or poor yield.
In addition, WRKY23 was previously found to play a role in the way
plants interact with types of nematode parasites, which could lead to further
research into how to prevent attacks from the creatures during the early stages
of plant growth.
The paper Transcription Factor WRKY23 Assists Auxin Distribution Patterns During
Arabidopsis Root Development Through Local Control on Flavonol Biosynthesis
featured in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences of the United
States of America
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