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How do plants withstand harsh conditions?

Understanding how plants sense and cope with harsh conditions such as drought, too much salt in the soil or extreme temperatures could help researchers develop tougher crops - an essential step to improving agricultural productivity, environmental sustainability and global food security.

But while scientists have made some headway in decoding plants' stress signaling pathways and defense mechanisms, many key questions remain unanswered, says a review by Jian-Kang Zhu, distinguished professor of plant biology in the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture.

"So many scientists have been working on these research questions, but we still don't see a lot of new crop varieties with improved drought resistance or tolerance to heat or cold," he said. "It's like cancer research - so important, so many people working on this problem and many papers published each year. But can we say we understand cancer enough to develop treatments that really work well? It remains a huge challenge. The same is true for drought and other major abiotic stresses."


Jian-Kang Zhu, distinguished professor of plant biology, studies how plants respond to harsh environments - how they manage to survive in the face of drought, too much salt in the soil or when temperatures are too hot or cold. (Purdue Agriculture/Vincent Walter)

Because plants can't relocate when conditions get rough, their survival depends on quickly detecting changes in the environment and deploying the right defense strategies. During a severe drought, for example, many plants will slow or stop growth, redirecting energy resources to protecting themselves from stress-related damage. This strategy requires a plant to overhaul its metabolism and reprogram gene expression. But when conditions become favorable again, it must quickly dismantle its defense responses to resume normal growth and development.

Understanding how these processes work could help researchers boost crop resilience, an increasingly critical need as the global population grows and climate change intensifies.

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