{"id":18301,"date":"2015-02-05T07:49:03","date_gmt":"2015-02-05T07:49:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/research\/scientists-engineer-crops-to-boost-their-draught-tolerance\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T10:57:56","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T05:27:56","slug":"scientists-engineer-crops-to-boost-their-draught-tolerance","status":"publish","type":"research","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/scientists-engineer-crops-to-boost-their-draught-tolerance","title":{"rendered":"Scientists engineer crops to boost their draught tolerance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana,geneva,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">Drought is a major environmental stress factor affecting the growth and development of farm crops and other plants. In a drought-like situation, plants naturally secrete abscisic acid (ABA), a stress hormone that closes guard cells on leaves, called stomata, inhibiting plant growth and reducing water consumption.\u00a0While crops can be sprayed with ABA to help them survive droughts, producing ABA is expensive. A team of scientists, led by Sean Cutler at the University of California, Riverside, developed a new method of assisting draught-inflicted plants using synthetic biology. They engineered the ABA receptors in plants to be activated by the widely used agrochemical, mandipropamid, which is a fungicide, as it readily bonded to the ABA receptors. The reprogrammed plants sprayed with mandipropamid effectively survived drought conditions by turning on the ABA pathway. Although some scientists are skeptical about this method, the novel use of synthetic biology is a promising approach for crop improvement in the age of climatic changes and global water shortage.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana,geneva,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">Read more in <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencedaily.com\/releases\/2015\/02\/150204134119.htm\">Science Daily<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":33313,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false},"new_tags":[],"series":[],"subject":[2868],"class_list":["post-18301","research","type-research","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","subject-plant-and-animal-science"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Scientists engineer crops to boost their draught tolerance | Editage Insights<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In a drought-like situation, plants naturally secrete abscisic acid (ABA), inhibiting plant growth and reducing water consumption.\u00a0While crops can be sprayed with ABA to help them survive droughts, producing ABA is expensive. A team of scientists, led by Sean Cutler at the University of California, Riverside, developed a new method of assisting draught-inflicted plants using synthetic biology. Read on to find out more.\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/scientists-engineer-crops-to-boost-their-draught-tolerance\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Scientists engineer crops to boost their draught tolerance | Editage Insights\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In a drought-like situation, plants naturally secrete abscisic acid (ABA), inhibiting plant growth and reducing water consumption.\u00a0While crops can be sprayed with ABA to help them survive droughts, producing ABA is expensive. A team of scientists, led by Sean Cutler at the University of California, Riverside, developed a new method of assisting draught-inflicted plants using synthetic biology. Read on to find out more.\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/scientists-engineer-crops-to-boost-their-draught-tolerance\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Editage Insights\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Editage\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-09-22T05:27:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/editage-insights-generic-banner.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"870\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"446\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Editage\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/scientists-engineer-crops-to-boost-their-draught-tolerance\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/scientists-engineer-crops-to-boost-their-draught-tolerance\",\"name\":\"Scientists engineer crops to boost their draught tolerance | Editage Insights\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/scientists-engineer-crops-to-boost-their-draught-tolerance#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/scientists-engineer-crops-to-boost-their-draught-tolerance#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/editage-insights-generic-banner_298.webp\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-02-05T07:49:03+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-09-22T05:27:56+00:00\",\"description\":\"In a drought-like situation, plants naturally secrete abscisic acid (ABA), inhibiting plant growth and reducing water consumption.\u00a0While crops can be sprayed with ABA to help them survive droughts, producing ABA is expensive. 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