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Bacteria Help Plants Thrive
in Saline Conditions
Salinity stress is a major issue
faced by farmers, but new
research has discovered why
some plants handle salty
conditions better than others:
Enterobacter cloacae. These plant
growth promoting rhizobacteria
(PGPR), which grow in the soil
or on the roots of plants, help
the plant acquire necessary
nutrients, modulate plant
hormone levels, and protect
the plant from pathogens.
They found the PGPR
influenced the production
of proteins involved in stress
response pathways. The
research suggested that
Enterobacter cloacae helped
the plants produce more of
certain cytoskeletal and cell
cycle proteins to reinforce
the cell structure and to
ensure that cell division
goes on.
— researchmatters.in
Breeding Less Selfish Crops Could Increase Yields
Over the past 10,000 years, we have bred selfish plants by
focusing on each plant’s individual characteristics and yields.
That is, we optimized crop yields by selecting and cultivating
only the strongest, most productive plants. However, a new
study in Ecology suggests that farmers could increase yields by
up to 35 per cent by cultivating more social traits in crops. “It’s
about imagining a new evolutionary strategy in plant breeding.
What is good for individual plants is not necessarily good for
the crop population in the field,” says professor Jacob Weiner
from the Department of Plant and Environmental Science at
the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. “Traditional breeding
chooses the plants that clearly give higher individual yields, but
in general, these plants use a lot of resources to compete with
one another, which can potentially result in a poorer collective
yield.” So, instead of wasting time and energy competing, crops
would share their resources more equally. Though
individual yields may be smaller, the
overall yield would increase.
— sciencenordic.com
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