English: A team of scientists led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory have discovered the specific gene that controls an important symbiotic relationship between plants and soil fungi, and successfully facilitated the symbiosis in a plant that typically resists it.

The discovery could lead to the development of bioenergy and food crops that can withstand harsh growing conditions, resist pathogens and pests, require less chemical fertilizer and produce larger and more plentiful plants per acre.

The fungus Laccaria bicolor, in green, is shown colonizing the root of a natural host Populus trichocarpa. A better understanding of plant-fungi symbioses could lead to engineering plant-fungal associations and improve nitrogen and nutrition uptake along with plants’ resistance to drought and pathogens, according to an Oak Ridge National Laboratory-led research team.

Read more: www.ornl.gov/news/ornl-scientists-make-fundamental-discov...

Credit: Jessy Labbe/Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy and Kevin Cope/University of Wisconsin, Madison.