To avoid salt in soil, plants can change their root direction and grow away from saline areas.
To avoid salt in soil, plants can change their root direction and grow away from saline areas. University of Copenhagen researchers helped find out what makes this possible. The discovery changes our understanding of how plants change their shape and direction of growth and may help alleviate the accelerating global problem of high soil salinity on farmland.
Whereas a bath in the ultra-salty Dead Sea may be a balm for human soul and body, the relationship between most plants and salt is quite the opposite. Plants desperately do whatever they can to steer clear of salinity – as salts can damage and even suffocate them.
Unfortunately, salt in agricultural land is an accelerating global problem, partly due to climate change, which increases the salinity of soil whenever floods sweep coastal zones. Typically, this lowers crop yields.
Read more at University of Copenhagen - Faculty of Science
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