Getting to the root of resilient agriculture

Around the world, scientists are working to produce crops with better tolerance to environmental stress. For example, breeders are trying to get maize to thrive in challenging soils. But this challenge has its own challenge: roots are underground and therefore hard to study. As a result, even though roots are critically important to plant health – providing nutrients, water and structural support – they are often left out of field research. A new study, by Lopez-Valdivia and colleagues, is the..