Scientists Discover Method to Stimulate Plant Growth for Better Crop Yields

Scientists may have found a way to stimulate plant growth and lead to better crop yields. They've discovered a natural mechanism that could lend aid to plants even when they're under stress.

Plants naturally slow or even stop their growth altogether in adverse conditions. For example, drought or high salt content in soil can cause them to shut down in order to save energy. This can be especially problematic for farmers since crops that suffer from restricted growth produce smaller yields.

In order to better understand what causes plants to shut down under adverse conditions, the researchers examined plant hormones and proteins. They found that in order to repress growth, the plants make proteins. This process is reversed when plants created a hormone, called Gibberellin, which breaks apart the proteins.

Yet what could potentially stimulate growth and keep plants from producing these proteins in the first place? The scientists found that a modifier protein, called SUMO, interacts with the growth repressing proteins. By modifying the interaction between the modifier protein and the repressor proteins, it's possible to remove the brakes from plant growth. This results in higher yields, even when the plants are experiencing stress.

"What we have found is a molecular mechanism in plants which stabilizes the levels of specific proteins that restrict growth in changing environmental conditions," said Ari Sadanandom, one of the researchers, in a news release.  "This mechanism works independently of the Gibberllin hormone, meaning we can use this new understanding for a novel approach to encourage the plant to grow, even when under stress."

So how exactly can this interaction be modified? It can be accomplished in a number of ways. This includes conventional plant breeding methods and biotechnology techniques.

"If you are a farmer in the field then you don't want your wheat to stop growing whenever it is faced with adverse conditions," said Sadanandom in a news release. "If we can encourage the crops to keep growing, even when faced by adverse conditions, it could give us greater yields and lead to sustainable intensification of food production that we must achieve to meet the demands on the planet's finite resources."

The findings are published in the journal Developmental Cell.