Finding ways to protect drought-stricken plants

We encourage you to republish this article online and in print, it’s free under our creative commons attribution license, but please follow some simple guidelines:

You have to credit our authors.
You have to credit SciDev.Net — where possible include our logo with a link back to the original article.
You can simply run the first few lines of the article and then add: “Read the full article on SciDev.Net” containing a link back to the original article.
If you want to also take images published in this story you will need to confirm with the original source if you're licensed to use them.
The easiest way to get the article on your site is to embed the code below.

For more information view our media page and republishing guidelines.

The full article is available here as HTML.

Press Ctrl-C to copy

<div class="article-wrap">
<div id="article-introduction">
<h1>Finding ways to protect drought-stricken plants</h1>
<h4></h4>
</div>
<br />
<br />

<div id="article-body">
<p>Worldwide, drought could be the biggest problem for food production. Historically arid regions in Africa and the Middle East are expanding, and shortages of fresh water are appearing in places, such as the Asia-Pacific rim and Northeast Brazil, that once never doubted their water supplies.<BR><BR>Now, plant researchers are focusing on identifying specific genes that help plants cope with arid conditions. They hope to improve the ability of crop plants to withstand dehydration by transferring in some of the genes they have identified.<BR><BR>The research has had some success, albeit modest, with cotton and tomatoes. Researchers hope to extend the work to the most important cultivated crops: cereal grains.<BR><BR><a href="/sci.cfm?redir=http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/296/5571/1226?ijkey=jC1qeZtxs4YQk&keytype=ref&siteid=sci" target="_blank" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/tracking/external/'+this.href);" rel="noopener noreferrer">Link to full text</A><BR><BR>Reference: <em>Science</em> 296, 1226 (2002)<BR></p>

</div>
<div class="quick-links-wrapper">
<h3>You might also like</h3>
[related-articles]
</div>
<p>This article was originally published on <a href="https://www.scidev.net" target="_blank">SciDev.Net</a>. Read the <a href="https://www.scidev.net/global/features/finding-ways-to-protect-droughtstricken-plants/" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
<script type="text/javascript">
(function(e,t,n,r,i,s,o){e["GoogleAnalyticsObject"]=i;e[i]=e[i]||function(){(e[i].q=e[i].q||[]).push(arguments)},e[i].l=1*new Date;s=t.createElement(n),o=t.getElementsByTagName(n)[0];s.async=1;s.src=r;o.parentNode.insertBefore(s,o)})(window,document,"script","//www.google-analytics.com/ga.js","ga");var _gaq=_gaq||[];var _gaq=_gaq||[];_gaq.push(["_setAccount","UA-3223906-8"],["_trackEvent","article interaction","republished","https://www.scidev.net/global/features/finding-ways-to-protect-droughtstricken-plants/",null,true])
</script>
</div>

Worldwide, drought could be the biggest problem for food production. Historically arid regions in Africa and the Middle East are expanding, and shortages of fresh water are appearing in places, such as the Asia-Pacific rim and Northeast Brazil, that once never doubted their water supplies.

Now, plant researchers are focusing on identifying specific genes that help plants cope with arid conditions. They hope to improve the ability of crop plants to withstand dehydration by transferring in some of the genes they have identified.

The research has had some success, albeit modest, with cotton and tomatoes. Researchers hope to extend the work to the most important cultivated crops: cereal grains.

Link to full text

Reference: Science 296, 1226 (2002)