They say that to teach a scientist is only to spoil, but not in this case. It turns out that scientists teach plants how to manipulate, more precisely manage the environment, to ensure an affordable and stable supply of food in the form of nutrients in the soil. This process in the plant world is similar to express pizza delivery in the world of people.
Express delivery for plants
Employees of a private research university in Houston, Texas, USA, engaged in a program of synthetic and physical biology discovered a unique property of plants. The fact is that throughout the entire development period, plants use specialized bacteria as a nutrient delivery service.
A report published in the journal Science Advances reveals the fact that the environment has changed under the influence of plants, which, if necessary, produce and secrete molecules called flavonoids.
In turn, flavonoids attract microbes that populate plants and form nitrogen glomeruli just where it is needed - at the roots that supply food. In essence, this is a "home delivery service."
Unique intermediaries
The Rice University team, in collaboration with researchers from Cornell University, specifically analyzed how flavonoids mediate between plants and microbes, for example in the presence of abiotic (dead) carbon. To the researchers' surprise, experiments showed that excess dissolved, rather than solid, carbon in the soil effectively dampens flavonoid signals.
According to the researchers, understanding how carbon in the soil affects these signals can provide a way to create beneficial interactions between plants and microbes and develop effective corrections to soil fertility (additives that balance the lack of nutrients in the soil).
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In general, they showed that higher levels of organic carbon in the soil suppress flavonoid signals up to 98%, which, of course, affects crop yields. So, in one of the experiments, interruption of signals between legumes and microbes sharply reduced the formation of nitrogen nodules.
Secret plant connections
University graduate students study how flavonoids interact with soil supplements that are commonly used in agriculture for various purposes.
“We came to the conclusion that the biochar will have a great effect, ” said one of the researchers.
Biochar is charcoal that has gone through several stages of combustion without oxygen. There was a hypothesis that it is a biochar that can increase soil productivity, and for one, reduce the carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere.
Scientists were sure that plants would choose a biochar for the role of intermediary. However, instead of this, plants preferred dissolved carbon passing through water in the soil; it was he who amplified the signals for the formation of flavonoids, and this was fundamentally different from the expectations of scientists.
