Cornell researchers have discovered a previously unknown way plants regulate water that is so fundamental it may change plant biology textbooks – and open the door to breeding more drought-tolerant crops.
Cornell researchers have discovered a previously unknown way plants regulate water that is so fundamental it may change plant biology textbooks – and open the door to breeding more drought-tolerant crops.
Until now, scientists believed that pores on a leaf’s surface, called stomata, which exchange both water vapor and carbon dioxide with the atmosphere, were the plant’s only means for regulating water loss.
But a new study describes for the first time how water regulation also occurs under the leaf’s surface, at the membranes of photosynthesizing cells. The result was made possible thanks to AquaDust, a Cornell-developed nanoscale sensor that measures water status inside leaves.
Read more at: Cornell University
Photo Credit: AndreasAux via Pixabay
