"Tested by the valley's extreme summertime heat, the flowering shrub Arizona honeysweet (Tidestromia oblongifolia) thrives. The humble-looking, seafoam green plant considers 113°F optimal for photosynthesis - the highest known temperature tolerance of any major crop species, according to new research. A team of scientists published the find on Friday in the journal Current Biology, revealing the plant's tricks for growing fast in heat and drawing lessons for how to engineer crops to withstand climate change."
""This is the most heat-tolerant plant ever documented," Seung Yon "Sue" Rhee, a biologist at Michigan State University and the senior author of the study, said in a statement. "Understanding how T. oblongifolia acclimates to heat gives us new strategies to help crops adapt to a warming planet." The scientists collected seeds from several locations in the region, including from Death Valley National Park, one of the study authors told SFGATE, and brought them back to Rhee's lab at Michigan State's Plant Resilience Institute."
Arizona honeysweet (Tidestromia oblongifolia) thrives in Death Valley's extreme summertime heat and reaches optimal photosynthesis at about 113°F, the highest known tolerance among major crop species. Seeds collected from multiple regional locations, including Death Valley National Park, were grown in custom plant chambers that simulated extreme light and temperature swings. The species tripled its biomass in 10 days while other heat-tolerant species stopped growing. Physiological measurements, live imaging and genomic analysis show that the shrub adjusts photosynthetic systems to maintain carbon fixation and growth under high temperatures, offering mechanistic strategies for engineering heat-resilient crops.
Read at SFGATE
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