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: 2) by captain normal on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:39AM
Marijuana growers are way ahead on this,
http://oaksterdamuniversity.com/microbes-and-molasses/ [oaksterdamuniversity.com]
http://bigbudsmag.com/top-shelf-hydroponic-microorganisms-for-medical-marijuana/ [bigbudsmag.com]
When life isn't going right, go left.
(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").
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 22 2016, @03:02PM
Surprise: microbes are part of the system, they significantly affect the macro-organisms.
You don't just "grow a plant" - you grow a plant in an ecosystem. Without nitrogen fixing bacteria on the roots, not much nitrogen is getting to the macro-plant. There are at least dozens of separate species that are involved in growing a single target crop, more like hundreds to thousands if you really get into everything present in the field. Some may seem insignificant in an initial analysis, but given particular conditions, they can become very influential.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @04:55AM
You'd die without the bacteria ball in your gut digesting your food and making for example vitamin K. Also, the source of energy in every last of your cells, mitochondria, are thought to be microbes. We macro life forms are nothing but petri dishes. And we're all in this together.