CROPS could be 'switched on' to conserve more water by using a chemical commonly used in agricultural production, according to new research from the University of California.
Drought tolerance in plants could be improved by engineering them to activate water-conserving processes in response to the fungicide mandipropamid, a study published in Nature this week has demonstrated.
Associate Professor of Plant Cell Biology and Chemistry Sean Cutler and his colleagues hope the approach they developed could potentially be applied to other parts of the same drought-response pathway and a range of other agrichemicals.
In response to water shortage, plants produce elevated levels of the chemical abscisic acid (ABA), which regulates water use and improves stress tolerance. This chemical induces these effects by acting on the ABA receptor, a key component of a signalling pathway that controls the apertures of pores called stomata, through which water vapour can escape.
The researchers developed a new version of the ABA receptor that can be activated by mandipropamid, and found this strategy worked in Arabidopsis and tomato plants, resulting in closure of the stomata in response to treatment with the agrichemical.
While excited by the potential of their findings to improve crop robustness, they noted further analyses would be needed to confirm that broader use of the approach could improve drought tolerance.
"We have successfully repurposed an agrochemical for a new application using receptor engineering (and) anticipate that this strategy will be applied to other plant receptors and represents a new avenue for crop improvement," the authors said in the study paper.
"(However) the broad use of the ABA pathway for manipulating drought tolerance is a relatively new idea that requires further validation.
"Nonetheless, our work demonstrates that it is possible to repurpose an existing agrochemical using receptor engineering."
