What is it about?
We need to increase the productivity of our crops while saving water. However, we find that sorghum plants that save water end up not making the most of the good light environment available for photosynthesis. This is because the little pores on the leaf surface that stimulate photosynthesis, the stomata, are too scared to open up in response to highlight and favouring to save water. This means that economising water has a penalty in terms of production.
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Why is it important?
We elucidate the physiological mechanism above in a large selection of sorghum varieties and show the important genetic factors that control these behaviours. Namely, we shold the the size and number of these stomatal pores does not matter for their response. Also, we should that possible biochemical elements, called Aquaporins, might play a role. This means that scientists can start manipulating these traits to see if this water economisation behaviour persists.
Perspectives
The key word at the centre of our paper "Trade-off"! We show that plants always have a choice to make and have priorities (do I save water, or do I use as much water as possible to make food?). And that those priorities are related to how the plant is built and the genetics within it. We urge agronomic scientists to always consider trade-offs in plant behaviour and that breeding for more than one goal (save water AND make more food) might require a lot more understanding of crop physiology to resolve.
Yazen Al-Salman
Wageningen Universiteit en Researchcentrum
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Fast stomatal responses require anisohydric stomatal behaviour and lower water use efficiency in sorghum, The Crop Journal, April 2026, Tsinghua University Press,
DOI: 10.1016/j.cj.2025.11.022.
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