Plant species vary greatly in how efficiently they convert sunlight into organic matter, how fast they reproduce, how much nutrients and water they need, how much carbon they store, or how fast their ...

The plant immune system is a highly specialized and sensitive network of defences that serves to repel pathogenic microbes that would seek to exploit plant resources. Therefore, plants constantly ...

Researchers have discovered that bacteria from the plant microbiota are adapted to their host species. They show how root-associated bacteria have a competitive advantage when colonizing their native ...

When a maize plant is attacked by the fungus Ustilago maydis, tumor-like tissue growths occur at the site of infection. How the pathogen causes this response in its host has long been unknown. But a ...

As part of an investigation to boost agricultural yields and develop crops that are resilient to climate change, Berkeley Lab scientists have introduced RhizoNet, a computational tool that harnesses ...