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Seeds Inherit Memories of Enemies
The Scientist – After plants acquire resistance to pests and pathogens, their offspring shoot up through the soil with better defenses. The findings, published in a recent series of papers in Plant Physiology, are the first to identify small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) as a possible mechanism of this inherited memory response, and suggest a new strategy for managing crop pests. “It’s sort of like giving a vaccine to the parent and seeing immunity in the child,” said Andrei Alyokhin, who studies insect-plant interactions at the University of Maine and was not involved in the research. “It could help with the pest problem—induced resistance in plants is an extremely underutilized approach.” Read article
Tags: food agriculture, nature universe