Resurrection under the guidance of scientists. They want to examine their genotype
For several decades, botanists have been looking at fascinating scales, known as the Resurrection. These are plants that are shrinking and drying out during drought to revive within a few days in response to rain.
Several plants belong to the group of Resurrection, and the scales for the water without water can survive up to 6 months. Their leaves then become brown and fragile to the touch, but in contact with water they green in just hours. During the day they return to their best form and continue the process of photosynthesis.
Resurrection with a response to climate change?
These plants occur in South Africa, Australia and South America. Professor Jill Farrant from the University of Cape Town has been investigating their common features for over three decades. He believes that the ability to survive drought can be found in their genes, which in turn can be used to prepare agriculture for challenges related to climate change.
The vast majority of plants die when they experience water loss of 10-30 percent. The resurrection tolerance exceeds up to 95 percent. water loss. Carlos Messina from the State University of Florida points out, however, that it is not the resistance of these plants that is the most interesting, but their ability to live on the growth of the plant after drought.
Messin, dealing with resistant corn, explained that his plants can already survive drought, but again hydrated do not return to the same leaf architecture, and the flow of CO2 and water is disturbed in them. Of course, this negatively affects their growth when the rains come back.
As Messina said, the resurrection “seems to come back to the form they had before drought.” – If we can create a corn that does the same, it will be fantastic because we will regain this productivity – he said.
A black vision of the future of agriculture
Scientists warn that globally rising temperatures will make drought in the future much worse, especially in the Mediterranean Pool and Western North America. Drushes, fires and heat only in 2023 led to crops estimated at over $ 16 billion. Some climatic models predict that in Sub -Saharan Africa and South America, food production will be impossible, largely by drought and sterilization of the earth.
