Using embryonic tissue from the seeds of two species of grass-like plants, such as banana, rice, and wheat, scientists have discovered a revolutionary way to unite them. Beneficial traits, such as disease resistance or stress tolerance, can be added to the plants using this technique.
Grafting is the process of attaching the shoot of one plant to the root of another, allowing them to grow as one. Because monocotyledons lack a key tissue type in their stem called the vascular cambium, it was previously thought impossible to graft grass-like plants.
Root and shoot tissues obtained from the seeds of monocotyledonous grasses representing their earliest embryonic stages merge efficiently, according to researchers at the University of Cambridge. Their findings were published in the journal Nature today.
Monocotyledons account for an estimated 60,000 plants, many of which are large-scale crops such as rice, wheat, and barley.
The discovery has implications for the prevention of dangerous soil-borne diseases such as Panama Disease, often known as ‘Tropical Race 4’, which has been decimating banana crops for more than 30 years. Fears of global banana shortages have risen in response to a recent acceleration in the spread of this illness.
It’s an urgent challenge to make important food crops resistant to the diseases that are destroying them. Our technique allows us to add disease resistance, or other beneficial properties like salt tolerance, to grass-like plants without resorting to genetic modification or lengthy breeding programs.
Dr. Greg Reeves
“We’ve achieved something that everyone said was impossible. Grafting embryonic tissue holds real potential across a range of grass-like species. We found that even distantly related species, separated by deep evolutionary time, are graft compatible,” said Professor Julian Hibberd in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Plant Sciences, senior author of the report.
Monocotyledons of the same species, as well as monocotyledons from two different species, can be grafted successfully using this procedure. Grafting genetically diverse root and shoot tissues can result in a plant with novel characteristics such as dwarf shoots, pest and disease resistance, and more.
The strategy worked in a variety of monocotyledonous crop plants, including pineapple, banana, onion, tequila agave, and date palm, according to the researchers. Various procedures, including the injection of fluorescent dye into the plant roots, where it was seen to migrate up the plant and across the graft junction, were used to corroborate this.
“I read back over decades of research papers on grafting and everybody said that it couldn’t be done in monocots. I was stubborn enough to keep going for years until I proved them wrong,” said Dr. Greg Reeves, a Gates Cambridge Scholar in the University of Cambridge Department of Plant Sciences, and first author of the paper.
He added: “It’s an urgent challenge to make important food crops resistant to the diseases that are destroying them. Our technique allows us to add disease resistance, or other beneficial properties like salt tolerance, to grass-like plants without resorting to genetic modification or lengthy breeding programs.”
The banana industry around the world is built on a single type known as the Cavendish banana, a clone that can endure long-distance transportation. The crop has limited disease resistance since there is no genetic diversity among the plants.
Furthermore, because Cavendish bananas are sterile, disease resistance cannot be propagated into future generations. Researchers from all across the world are working to discover a solution to halt the development of Panama Disease before it spreads even further.
Grafting has been utilized in another plant type known as dicotyledons since antiquity. Because grafting gives favorable features such as disease resistance or earlier flowering, dicotyledonous orchard crops such as apples and cherries, as well as high-value annual crops such as tomatoes and cucumbers, are frequently produced on grafted plants.
Cambridge Enterprise has filed a patent for the researchers’ grafting approach. Ceres Agri-Tech, a knowledge-sharing cooperation between five prominent UK universities and three famous agricultural research organizations, has also provided financing.
“Panama disease is a huge problem threatening bananas across the world. It’s fantastic that the University of Cambridge has the opportunity to play a role in saving such an important food crop,” said Dr. Louise Sutherland, Director Ceres Agri-Tech.
Ceres Agri-Tech, led by the University of Cambridge, was created and managed by Cambridge Enterprise. It has provided the study both translational money as well as commercialization experience and support in order to scale up and increase the technique’s efficiency.
