Approacing plant stress

Dr. Ron Mittler and his research team are working to learn more about a plant’s response to stressors such as heat, drought and flooding because of extreme weather events. He has learned that when a plant is exposed to stress, it generates physiological changes within itself to fight that kind of stress. We as farmers recognize that a drought is impending. We take some biological substance, spray our field and our field is now more resistant to the effects of drought. Speaker2: Yeah, that's one approach. The problem with that approach, of course, is that you and me know that fields are really big and you don't want to just start spraying all the fields. In the United States, it's going to be really impossible. Another approach is to try to breed or somehow alter the plant, that it will respond faster to the stress and it will become more resistant when the stress arrives. And that's another application that we're working on and trying to make the plants respond faster and maybe even already trigger some of the mechanism that we learn from looking at this process. Speaker3: That would be a GMO. Speaker2: But not necessarily. I mean, it can be, but you can also maybe breed for more copies of these genes that are involved in this process. Thereby, you don't need to do any GMO work, you just regular breeding. They get the same outcome. Speaker3: Irrespective of the approach. If either one is successful, the plant's survival rate will increase in the midst of stresses. Well done, Dr..