Reno Gazette-Journal from Reno, Nevada • Page 111

YOUR GUIDE TO GOODS THAT GO EASY ON THE ENVIRONMENT LIVING Cj fOOlH "i i a TO3S'flmrl a Survival skills UNR scientists train plants to withstand stress By Mikalee Byerman rith drought conditions devastating the agricultural landscape throughout the country and around the world, scientists are journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America). In the halls of CABNR, the subjects of the ground-breaking research are referred to as "resurrection plants." But the science underlying the study is less miraculous than the terminology Advanced research: Ron Mittler. associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the university of Nevada. Reno, has worked toward helping plants tolerate extreme conditions. focusing their efforts on helping plants tolerate extreme environmental conditions.

One example: A University of Nevada, Reno researcher may have helped train an annual crop how not to kill itself during drought. The broader application: If this works in other annual crops and then in the field, agricultural crops could be able to tolerate droughts, with significant impacts on the economy and on lives. The same technology even may apply to lawn and garden plants, helping local residents work toward essentially drought-proofing their landscape. "In our country, the impact could be in the billions of dollars we'd certainly see food prices going down," said Ron Mittler, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology in the College of Agriculture, Biotechnology and Natural Resources. "But in Third World countries, for example, this research ultimately could save lives." The two-year study, a collaboration between the University of Nevada, Reno and University of California, Davis scientists Rosa M.

Rivero and Professor Eduardo Blumwald, led to an article published in the renowned T3 a cl O. 3 may imply. From a simplistic perspective, annual plants go through four stages: germination, growth, seed production and death. The death process, also called senescence, begins earlier and more aggressively when plants are faced with environmental stressors like drought. "Annual plants quickly sacrifice everything including their own lives to produce a few viable seeds.

That's what they've been programmed to do," Mittler said. "In the field, you don't want that. So essentially, we tricked the plants not to activate senescence." The "trick" in this research involved stimulating cytokinin production in tobacco plants through genetic modification; cytokinins are plant hormones that prevent senescence. With increased cytokinins, the test plants essentially returned to life after the scientists simulated an extreme drought 15 days without water. "Our control group did not recover from the stress and died," Mittler said.

"Our test groups they went through heck, but they survived." They not only survived; in fact, they thrived. The crops experienced vigorous growth after the drought and produced strong yields. The next steps will involve replicating the research in other annual crops such as corn, wheat and rice and then in the field. But if the research works as well in the field as it did in the lab, Mittler predicts improved agricultural production in the future as crops are trained not to kill themselves during times of drought. "I'm going to stop short of using the term 'magic but the results were amazing," he said.

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