ERC Starting Grant · 2024
Mechanisms of Water Sensing in Plant Roots
Water stress is a pressing global challenge for agriculture, particularly given hostile climate change. Plants have the remarkable ability to shape their roots to forage for water. For instance, roots growing through an air-filled space (e.g., soil gap) temporarily halt branching until re-entering moist soil — an intriguing phenomenon called ‘Xerobranching’. In a recent breakthrough, I developed an elegant bio-assay to reveal how roots stop branching by employing the abscisic acid hormone when they lose contact with water (Mehra et al., 2022 Science). However, the mechanisms by which roots primarily ‘sense’ water availability is still a puzzle. My ERC project ‘Water-Blind’ is designed to…
From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.