Functional root traits of wetland plants

Nobody anticipated that roots accommodate functional traits conferring flood as well as drought tolerance to plants. Nevertheless, we have identified two root traits, air-filled tissues and a barrier to radial oxygen loss, which enable survival in flooded soils but also when the water becomes scarce. This grant from the Carlsberg Foundation will greatly advance our quest to produce climate-smart crops such as rice and wheat. We are now able to obtain detailed tissue analyses of the two traits using cutting edge technologies when these traits develop in the roots of model plants as responses to environmental stress.