Strigolactone Signaling Controls Tillering Response to Phosphorus in Oryza sativa
Umehara M, Hanada A, Yoshida S
Plant Signaling
Understanding how rice controls its own growth in poor soil could help farmers breed varieties that produce better harvests with less fertilizer — lowering costs and reducing agricultural runoff into waterways.
When rice plants can't find enough phosphorus in the soil, they produce a natural signal that tells their side branches to stop growing. This is the plant's way of not spreading itself too thin when resources are tight. Scientists found that rice plants missing the ability to detect this signal just keep sprouting branches uncontrollably, even when phosphorus is low — wasting precious energy.
Key Findings
Low phosphorus conditions trigger increased strigolactone production in rice roots, directly suppressing side-shoot (tiller) growth.
Rice mutants lacking strigolactone perception showed uncontrolled tillering under phosphorus limitation, confirming the hormone's regulatory role.
The strigolactone signaling pathway acts as a nutrient-sensing switch, matching the plant's above-ground architecture to available soil resources.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Rice plants use a hormone called strigolactone to sense low phosphorus in soil and respond by growing fewer side shoots, conserving energy when nutrients are scarce.
Abstract Preview
We demonstrate that low phosphorus triggers strigolactone biosynthesis in rice roots, suppressing tiller bud outgrowth. Mutants deficient in strigolactone perception show uncontrolled tillering und...
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Rice is a cereal grain and in its domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species Oryza sativa —or, much less commonly, Oryza glaberrima. Asian rice was domesticated in China some 13,500 to 8,200 y...