Plants Do "Remember" Drought, Change Responses to Survive

The practice of hardening –  the withdrawal of water from plants which are due for transplanting has been termed anew. The new term drought-hardening justifies its practice in the development of the transplants' response to drought. The paper published in the journal Nature Communications discuss the mechanisms involved in the process.

Using the model plant Arabidopsis, the researchers including Michael Fromm of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln compared the reaction of plants that had been previously stressed by withholding water to those not previously stressed. Results showed that the pre-stressed plants recovered more quickly the next time they were water stressed. The non-trained plants wilted faster and their leaves lost water at a faster rate than trained plants.

The team found that the response of the trained plants corresponds to the increased transcription of certain genes during dehydration. They also found that during recovery periods when water is available, transcription of these genes returns to normal levels, and when similar drought period comes, the plants are now attuned to take the transcriptional response to stress and induce these genes to higher levels.

More on the story can be viewed at http://cropwatch.unl.edu/web/cropwatch/archive?articleID=4764327