Some Things Never Change: Introducing Receptors Could Improve Defence.

Flowering plants are divided into two major groups (the monocots and dicots) which split apart 150 million years ago.  Schoonbeek et al. show that a receptor can be moved from Arabidopsis thaliana (a dicot) into rice (a monocot), and this can make the rice more resistant to disease.

Advertisement

Project: Cotyledon Mash and the Fat Lazy Pathogen

Part of my masters this year has been a lab-based project. My project involves looking at whether a vanillin-based product can induce defence responses in broad bean, therefore making it more resistant to infection. This post will look at how I’ve been going on.

The Hero Within?

Not all microbes are bad. Recently the importance of the microbes in the guts of humans is becoming clear, but it’s not just animals that benefit from the microbes inside of them- so do plants, and these microbes could have potential in farming.

Teaching New Plants Old Tricks

Humans have been growing crops for 10,000 years and in this time we’ve selectively bred for crops which are easier to harvest. In doing this important genes involved in plant defence could have been lost along the way. Palmgren et al. look into the potential for re-introducing old genes into modern crops.

Attack of the Exploding Pineapples: A Ghost Disease Could Cause Trouble in Australia

A push for pineapples to be imported into Australia from Malaysia could leave the Queensland pineapple industry at risk.

Spare a thought for Poinsettias this Christmas

 

Poinsettias are a common part of Christmas floral displays but their economic success is partially due to infection by a pathogen.

What’s That Perfume Called?

Ok, so my plan is that this blog will be about my project and journal or news articles I find interesting. However, I want to take a break from that for a second.

In my project I’m using Botrytis pathogens, it’s commonly known as grey mould. Botrytis itself has a musty/damp smell and if you infect leaves they’ll soon smell like rotting leaves (I know, it’s shocking) so imagine my surprise when I come across this:

Project: Vanilla, an elicitor of plant defence?

For my  project I am looking into whether a product based on vanilla can elicit defence responses in plants. I covered why there’s research into natural products in my last post.

Going Back to Nature: Using Natural Products in Crop Protection.

Chemical fungicides are currently under threat from new legislation. Loss of fungicides could lead to yield losses in crops due to lack of disease control. Alternative methods in to crop protection currently include the use of natural products which are less likely to damage the environment and be more acceptable by the public.

Plants vs. Zombifying Pathogen

Many of us are familiar with the ‘zombie fungus’ (Ophiocordyceps unilateralis) which turns ants into ‘zombies’. The fungus is able to manipulate the ant behaviour to its own ends, which are to find the best spot to release its spores for reproduction, one of these released spores might land on another ant and the cycle can continue. This is not an isolated case and there are other examples this ‘zombifying’ behaviour in animals, it is also seen in plants.