University of Missouri researchers have found a new way to alter root length in plants, and it may be able to help protect plants through drought and unstable weather.

Walter Gassmann and Jianbin Su, along with their researchers in the Walter Gassmann lab at Mizzou’s Bond Life Sciences Center, identified a protein called SRFR1 in the plant immune system that also affects root growth. Through genetic engineering, Gassmann and Su were able to use this protein to manipulate root length.

Gassmann and Su work with an experimental plant called Arabidopsis thaliana and discovered a developmental defect that they could use to their advantage.

“The protein that we’re studying makes these gel-like structures called condensates in a very particular root cell at the tip of the root,” said Gassmann, director of the Bond Life Sciences Center.

This process regulates how much energy the plant invests in the roots and their final length, Gassmann said.

“By placing our protein into the cell and being able to manipulate how much condensates form and how big they get, we could actually control the final root length of a developing seedling,” Gassmann said.

This research shows promise in being able to adapt plants best to their environments. By increasing root length, plants are able to better reach water and nutrients deep within the soil in times of drought and unstable weather, Gassmann said.

Right now, more than 51% of Missouri is experiencing at least “moderate drought” and more than 19% is experiencing “severe drought,” according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

“We have more and more unstable weather, longer droughts and then suddenly flooding,” Gassmann said. “We need to find ways to make agriculture resilient to those changes.”

This breakthrough may end up being a key piece in making agriculture more adaptable to unpredictable weather, but Gassmann and Su have only made the first step.

“We don’t know where our system that we’ve discovered taps into the basic machinery of making a root grow, so that is the next step,” Gassmann said.

They also find value in researching the same protein in human biology, even though Gassmann hasn’t seen it behave in the same way as it does in plants.

MU researchers discover new way to manipulate plant root length