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March 8, 2012

Petunia points the way to better harvests: Understanding plants' relationships with helpful soil fungi

Most plants live in symbiosis with soil fungi and are supplied with water and nutrients as a result. Based on the petunia, plant biologists at the University of Zurich have now discovered that a special transport protein is required to establish this symbiotic relationship. The targeted control of this protein could lead to greater harvests.

About 80 percent of all terrestrial plants enter into a symbiotic relationship with fungi living in the soil. The fungi provide the plant with water, important nutrients like phosphate and nitrate, and certain trace elements like zinc; the plant, on the other hand, supplies the fungus with carbohydrates. It is assumed that plants were only able to migrate onto land 400 million years ago thanks to this symbiosis.

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