High salt in soil dramatically stresses plant biology and reduces the growth and yield of crops. Now researchers have found specific proteins that allow plants to grow better under salt stress, and may help breed future generations of more salt-tolerant crop plants.
Professor Staffan Persson led the study and said that unlike humans who can move away from the salty snacks or drink more water, a plant is stuck in high salt (or saline) soils and must use other tactics to cope.
"More and more of the world' crops are facing salt stress with high salt in soils (also known as salinity) affecting 20% of the total, and 33% of irrigated, agricultural lands worldwide, " said Professor Persson, from University of Melbourne, Australia, formerly at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology.
Read Plants also suffer from stress in full
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