Growing plants in vinegar could help them survive drought.
With the threat of climate change looming, farmers and scientists alike are realizing that crops have become more resistant to events like droughts if we want to maintain a reliable food source.
“HDA6 directly represses acetic acid biosynthesis genes under normal conditions,” says study author Jong Myong Kim, a research scientist at RIKEN in Japan.
“On the other hand, under drought conditions, HDA6 is removed from these gene regions, then acetic acid is produced especially.” The enzyme acts as a switch of sorts, its absence signaling during times of stress that it’s time for a plant to transition from the normal breakdown of sugar for energy to the production of acetate.
But that pathway was even more active in mutant Arabidopsis plants, producing even greater quantities of acetate.
Sure enough, over 70 percent of the plants grown in soil mixed with acetic acid survived drought conditions for at least 14 days.
“Moreover, if these plants can accept the acetic acid technique, I thought we can enrich the public interest and welfare in the world.” In comparison to transgenic processes that could be used to make plants sturdier, the vinegar trick is an inexpensive, simple, and sustainable process that can be made accessible to many.
Kim says he has already received interest in this method from everyone from farmers to flower shop owners to amateur gardeners.
His next step is to keep honing in on the signal pathway that makes this resistance possible, as well as finding the optimized conditions of acetic acid application for outdoor fields.
“Now we are trying to cooperate with some farmers, and also some companies, to make a method to apply this system,” says Kim.