A new study shows how plant molecules that originally evolved to detect smoke have been adapted as hormone sensors in pea plants. This has wide implications for crops and green plants in general.

Malathy Palayam, Aleczander Young, Lior Tal, and Nitzan Shabek at the UC Davis Department of Plant Biology are exploring the mechanism by which the plant hormone strigoractone regulates a massive ...

Plants have an immune system, like people, and when it is triggered by threats like disease or pests, a plant's defenses are activated. But there’s a downside to this protective mechanism: The plant’s ...

Seeds like wheat, rice, and corn are at the center of the global food supply and provide most of the daily calories consumed ...

Microbial factories provide a sustainable alternative to tree sap for producing elusive plant molecules, offering new insights into plant development. Plant SLs serve two roles: canonical ones act as ...

When faced with harsh growing conditions, the energy plants typically expend on growth gets delegated towards a stress response induced by disease, salty soils and extreme weather. And according to a ...

LA JOLLA (Aug 20, 2025)—The Salk Institute will welcome plant biologist Lucia Strader as a new professor and holder of the Howard H. and Maryam R. Newman Chair in Plant Biology in October 2025.

Plants regulate their growth using hormones, including a group called strigolactones that prevent excessive budding and branching. Strigolactones also help plant roots form symbiotic relationships ...

In his botanical laboratory at the University of Chicago, Professor George Konrad Karl Link recently made a discovery which he considered so noteworthy that he sent a report of it all the way to ...

Proteins discovered as 'smoke detectors' in plants that depend on fire exposure for germination have been adapted as strigolactone hormone detectors in other plants, researchers found. Wildfires are ...

Plants have an immune system, like people, and when it is triggered by threats like disease or pests, a plant's defenses are activated. But there's a downside to this protective mechanism: the plant's ...