The ecological genomic basis of salinity adaptation in Tunisian Medicago truncatula.

Background: As our world becomes warmer, agriculture is increasingly impacted by rising soil salinity and understanding plant adaptation to salt stress can help enable effective crop breeding. Salt tolerance is a complex plant phenotype and we know little about the pathways utilized by naturally tolerant plants. Legumes are important species in agricultural and natural ecosystems, since they engage in symbiotic nitrogen-fixation, but are especially vulnerable to salinity stress.

Physiological traits related to terminal drought resistance in common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.).

Background: A major problem in common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) agriculture is the low yield due to terminal drought. Because common beans are grown over a broad variety of environments, the study of drought-resistant genotypes might be useful to identify distinctive or common mechanisms needed for survival and seed production under drought.

Relationship between carbohydrate partitioning and drought resistance in common bean.

Drought is a major yield constraint in common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.). Pulse-chase (14)C-labelling experiments were performed using Pinto Villa (drought resistant) and Canario 60 (drought sensitive) cultivars, grown under optimal irrigation and water-deficit conditions.

Proline-rich cell wall proteins accumulate in growing regions and phloem tissue in response to water deficit in common bean seedlings.

Plant cell walls undergo dynamic changes in response to different environmental stress conditions. In response to water deficit, two related proline-rich glycoproteins, called p33 and p36, accumulate in the soluble fraction of the cell walls in Phaseolus vulgaris (Covarrubias et al. in Plant Physiol 107:1119-1128, 1995).