Teaching Plants to Grow For Energy, Food, Drugs, and More

Humans domesticated many plants thousands of years ago, during the first agricultural revolution. Now humans are using genetic engineering, and other techniques to coax plants to grow in ways that humans want.

"This is a major step in understanding auxin transport, which is vital to every aspect of plant growth and development," said Angus Murphy, the professor of horticulture and landscape architecture at Purdue University who led the team.

Murphy said results of the study, published last month in The Plant Cell, have already been applied and have been used to create plants with larger root structures.

"This study gives us another important tool in our toolbox," he said. "Before, we would modify plants one gene at a time, but now we realize why this approach has not worked very well. We now see that there are two elements of control to keep in mind, just as amplified sound is best controlled by modulating gain from the microphone and amplifier output to the speakers."

....The research also should have important implications in horticulture. For example, the team's findings might be used to produce ornamentals that do not need pruning or that have larger root systems to support more vegetation, he said. Such plants would require less labor, energy and - with larger roots - less fertilizer, Murphy said.

The team's findings could have applications in food crops, but Murphy said he hasn't pursued such work due to some concerns over eating genetically modified foods.

"We're focusing on biofuels and ornamentals because everybody loves to drive their car, and people don't eat their flowers," he said.

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Scientists are learning how plants adjust to salt, drought, and other stresses. And although advances in plant science does not receive the news coverage that stem cells and human gene therapy receive, in the long run what we can coax plants to do may determine what we can accomplish on Earth, and how far we can expand into the solar system and beyond.