Master hormone controls plant growth

(iStockphoto: ansonsaw)

A recent article in ABC Science reports that a single hormone co-ordinates how a plant grows in response to the environment, researchers have found.

Plant molecular biologist Dr Phil Brewer, of the University of Queensland, and colleagues, report their findings about a chemical called strigolactone, this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"It's a very key hormone," says Brewer.

Three years ago, Brewer and colleagues published research in the journal Nature that showed strigolactone determines whether a plant grows long and skinny or broad and bushy.

Read full article: ABC Science

Herbicide May Have Unintended Consequences

Purdue Univ. researchers have discovered a fine-tuning mechanism involved in plant root growth that has them questioning whether a popular herbicide may have unintended consequences, causing some plants to need more water or nutrients.

Angus Murphy, a professor of horticulture, and Wendy Peer, an assistant professor of horticulture, study the movement of auxin, a plant hormone essential for plant development. They showed that ABCB4, a protein responsible for moving auxin into cells, also removes the hormone when too much has accumulated.

"We knew that the protein took auxin up, but found that it switched to removing auxin when a threshold is reached," says Murphy, whose findings appeared in the early online version of The Plant Journal. "It starts transporting the hormones out."

That fine-tuning mechanism is integral to proper development of plant root hairs, which extend from the main plant root and are where most water and minerals enter.

Read full article in: The LaboratoryEquipment.com