Publications

Evaluating crop biodiversity is a challenging task and needs to integrate knowledge from different levels. This overview paper offers ways to tackle this challenge, illustrated by the case for drought tolerance in banana. KU Leuven hosts the International Musa Germplasm Collection managed by Bioversity International for safe storage and distribution in order to secure the crops genepool and encourage its use. The latter, however, requires an ...

Within trees, a portion of respired CO2 is assimilated by bark and woody tissue photosynthesis, but its physiological role remains unclear, in particular under unfavour able conditions like drought stress. We hypothesised that woody tissue photosynthesis will contribute to overall tree carbon gain both under sufficient water supply and during drought, and plays a role in maintaining the hydraulic function. We subjected half of the trees to a ...

The drought-tolerant grass Brachypodium distachyon is an emerging model species for temperate grasses and cereal crops. To explore the usefulness of this species for drought studies, a reproducible in vivo drought assay was developed. Spontaneous soil drying led to a 45% reduction in leaf size, and this was mostly due to a decrease in cell expansion, whereas cell division remained largely unaffected by drought. To investigate the molecular basis ...

The C4 grass Zea mays (maize or corn) is the third most important food crop globally after wheat and rice in terms of production and the second most widespread genetically modified (GM) crop, after soybean. Its demand is predicted to increase by 45% by the year 2020. In sub-Saharan Africa, tropical maize has traditionally been the main staple of the diet, 95% of the maize grown is consumed directly as human food and as an important source of ...

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of drought stress induced by polyethylene glycol-6000 in wild jujube, Ziziphus lotus. One-month-old, hydroponically grown seedlings were subjected to three treatments, i.e. normal watering (-0.2 MPa), moderate (-1.2 MPa) and severe (-2.1 MPa) drought stress for 14 days under controlled climatic conditions. Plant growth was markedly reduced with increasing osmotic stress. The shoot water ...

Due to climate change, farmers will face more extreme weather conditions and hence will need crops that are better adapted to these challenges. The raffinose family oligosaccharides (RFOs) could play a role in the tolerance of crops towards abiotic stress. To investigate this, we determined for the first time the importance of galactinol and RFOs in the roots and leaves of common bean under drought and salt stress conditions. Initially, the ...

Plants have evolved various mechanisms to adapt to adverse environmental stresses, such as the modulation of gene expression. Expression of stress-responsive genes is controlled by specific regulators, including transcription factors (TFs), that bind to sequence-specific binding sites, representing key components of cis-regulatory elements and regulatory networks. Our understanding of the underlying regulatory code remains, however, incomplete. ...

To adapt to climate change and water scarcity during dry, hot summers, more sustainable, or even deficit, irrigation is required in the ornamental sector, as it uses large amounts of water to sustain high-value crop production. Biostimulants, especially seaweed extracts, could offer a sustainable solution against drought stress as they are known to increase plant tolerance to abiotic stress. The effect of four seaweed extracts based on ...

In view of the expected increase in drought periods, researchers and breeders are searching for forage grasses that are more tolerant to drought stress. This study wanted to examine the physiological and biochemical reactions of nine forage grass varieties belonging to Festuca, Lolium and Festulolium under mild drought stress conditions in a semi-controlled field experiment. A mild drought stress treatment was applied in the period between cut ...