Drought and effective fertilizer

With the aim of developing effective fertilizers which can be applied even in drought conditions.

A team of researchers from the Polytechnic University of Valencia and the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas have deciphered the structure of the receptor of a hormone that can increase the resistance of crop plants to drought. This was announced by the researcher CSIC, Pedro Rodriguez Egea, who has stated that

"the discovery would help develop more effective plant protection products with synthetic molecule that mimics the effect of the hormone abscisic acid (ABA)".

Researchers have managed to elucidate the three dimensional structure (atomic level) of one receptor, called PYR1 of the ABA. This hormone is essential for plants to tackle the drought, and researchers have succeeded in describing how the receptor interacts with the phytohormone PYR1 to trigger the plant response to water stress. The result, which is published in the online version of the revista'Nature ', encourage the development of synthetic molecules that mimics the effect of ABA, overcoming the limitations of using this phytohormone in agriculture, since it is sensitive to light and their chemical synthesis is expensive. This work lays the groundwork for identifying these molecules in the field of drought resistance.