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from the it's-not-just-hte-plants-that-are-stressed dept.
With California in its fifth year of severe drought and many western states experiencing another year of unusually dry conditions, plants are stressed.
Agricultural crops, grasses and garden plants alike can get sick and die when factors such as drought and excess sun force them to work harder to survive.
Now, plants can better tolerate drought and other stressors with the help of natural microbes, University of Washington research has found. Specifically, plants that are given a dose of microbes stay green longer and are able to withstand drought conditions by growing more leaves and roots and using less water.
"Plants are less stressed if they have these natural microbes," said senior author Sharon Doty, a UW professor of environmental and forest sciences. "They will help plants deal with environmental challenges, especially with climate change."
Reference: Zareen Khan, Hyungmin Rho, Andrea Firrincieli, Shang Han Hung, Virginia Luna, Oscar Masciarelli, Soo-Hyung Kim, Sharon L Doty. Growth enhancement and drought tolerance of hybrid poplar upon inoculation with endophyte consortia. Current Plant Biology, 2016; DOI: 10.1016/j.cpb.2016.08.001
It is very brown in California's Central Valley.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by jmorris on Thursday September 22 2016, @03:29AM
Good lord. Is it possible to do ANY science without at least name dropping AGW theory in passing? I'm waiting for the pure tech articles, new CPU or something, to start doing it too. Oh wait, most of the push is now for lowering power consumption (mostly for economic reasons) and they DO often make an AGW pitch.
Otherwise, interesting idea though.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Thursday September 22 2016, @05:11AM
One need look no farther than the next and previous stories ("Quantum Teleportation Achieved over Metropolitan Fiber Networks" and "Lobbying Results in FDA Approval for Controversial Drug").