Daniel Luque
Algarrobo (Málaga), Jan 30 (EFE) .- A novel double water absorption mechanism in a plant in tropical desert areas, which allows its survival against droughts by taking advantage of humidity, has been found by researchers from the IHSM “La Mayora” , in Algarrobo (Málaga), with the collaboration of Harvard University (USA).
The work, published in the journal “Plant Cell and Environment”, in which the Center for Research in Ecology and Arid Zones (CIEZA) of Venezuela has also collaborated, identifies a new method of double absorption in leaves for the survival of the plant before droughts, since they hardly need irrigation water -from the ground-.
The researcher at the “La Mayora” CSIC-UMA Institute of Subtropical and Mediterranean Hortofruticulture, Juan Losada, explained to Efe that the plant that has been studied is the “Capparis odoratissima” -sister of the caper-, which lives in South America in areas where rain is scarce, so it is not usually hydrated by the root.
Losada has detailed that this double absorption occurs because the leaves of this plant have microchannels – thousands per square centimeter – capable of absorbing the water that condenses both on the surface above and below the leaf, through idioblasts and trichomes, respectively.
The researcher of the ComFuturo program, of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), assures that this is an important finding of a “unique” mechanism, which allows us to understand how plants adapt to drought and thus know “alternative ways” of taking of water “when there are not enough water resources” for irrigation.
“There will come a time when, due to the effects of climate change, the water available for irrigation is not enough,” Losada confesses to Efe, adding that this discovery allows the development of new fertilization and irrigation mechanisms.
One of the applications that it may have for human consumption is the development, by researchers, of plants with this method of foliar absorption, which can be hydrated without the need for excessive irrigation water and without wasting water resources for, for example, produce fruit.
The research at this center is focused on the search for an integrated and sustainable crop, in which an optimal use of resources is achieved with a lower environmental impact.
La Mayora has crops of mango, avocado, custard apple and other more exotic foods such as papaya, soursop, cocoa, carambola, longan and lychee, among others.
It also has horticultural crops such as cucumber, melon, watermelon and pumpkin or tomato, among others, with important germplasm banks (seeds that have the genetic load of the plant) where their characteristics, their varieties, their resistance to pests or the relationship plant-pathogen.EFE
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