A new study reveals that plants prioritize water over gravity during drought conditions, suppressing gravitropism to become more hydrotropic. MIZ1 protein helps attenuate root gravitropism, enabling plants to search for water effectively.
Researchers have identified four genes in corn and Arabidopsis that regulate root growth in response to gravity, a trait essential for drought tolerance and efficient water use. The study's approach, leveraging genomic comparisons between distantly related species, has the potential to be applied to other traits.
Scientists have grown cucumbers in space to study the effects of water and gravity on plant roots. In their experiments, they found that water has a greater influence on controlling root growth than gravity, which will help inform future space farming strategies.