Italian researchers have made an advance in plant-growth research that promises to stretch roots so more species can grow in arid areas and the fruits of other plants will be healthier without having to use fertilisers.
The researchers, led by Rome University's Sabrina Sabatini, unlocked the mechanism that controls the two main plant-growth hormones, auxin and cytokine.
By modifying the genes of the two growth factors - rather than introducing new genes as tried by other researchers - Sabatini said her team had changed the way plants grow.
''In practice, we accelerate the process of evolution, obtaining results in two years that in Nature would require an extremely long time,'' she told the prestigious journal Science.
Sabatini, who recently helped reverse Italy's 'brain drain' by returning from the United States thanks to a grant from a foundation called Armenise, said the research would ''enable man to intervene in the stage of transition before a plant decides what it's going to be''.
By modulating the levels of the two hormones, scientists will be able to control the length of roots so that shorter ones aren't affected by salty water, enabling them to bear more fruit, and longer ones can tap into deep-lying reserves in drought-hit zones.
Sabatini's findigns were put into practice by Paolo Costantini of the genetics and molecular biology department of the Academia dei Lincei.
