Spraying against plant stress

Spraying against plant stress

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
A squirt of prevention is worth a gallon of cure. David Sparks, Idaho AG. Today, for the last 30 years, Dr. Ron Mettler and his team at the University of Missouri has been studying the effects of stressors such as drought or heat on plants. They've learned that when a plant is exposed to a stressor, it can build in a biological defense system. I asked him if these effects could be seen in crops. Speaker2: This phenomenon will happen in all crops, and people are working on developing biological stimuli that will stimulate the plant in a way that's very similar to what we're studying. And you can spray a plant with a certain compound and then it will cause the whole plant to become resistant. This is the underlying mechanism that helps that to work. Once we identify more specifically the compounds that are involved, you can apply to the whole field and make the whole field more resistant. So I know that people are studying that and trying to develop bio-stimulants like that that will cause the whole plant, whole field itself to be more resistant. Speaker1: Not to be simplistic, but 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. And 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. Impossible for now. But in the future, who knows?
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