As the effects of rising global temperatures — like drought, too much rain, and saltier soil — continue to threaten pantry staples and other crops, Anthropocene magazine reported that a hardy tomato relative from Peru's deserts could hold the key to helping the common tomato thrive in spite of a chaotic climate.
Tomato crops have struggled due to rising unfavorable growing conditions caused by the changing climate. For example, a study published by Frontiers detailed that rising sea levels lead to saltwater intrusion into groundwater.
This, along with changes in weather patterns that lead to upward movement of water in areas with shallow water tables and coastal areas with seawater intrusion, has resulted in saltier soil in key growing regions.
Researchers, whose findings are published in The Plant Journal, had a feeling that a tiny tomato species called the currant tomato — or Solanum pimpinellifolium, which is the closest living wild relative of the common tomato — holds untapped genetic secrets that could help common tomato crops.
To find out, they cultivated nearly 3,000 currant tomato plants in both a greenhouse and an open field, exposing a portion of the plants in each location to varying levels of salt stress for two weeks, per Anthropocene.
Before the experiment, the researchers identified markers to watch for as the plants grew, which they suspected would change under variable salinity. With these markers in mind, they watched for the plants that seemingly grew best under the salty conditions.
Five of the cultivars scored highest, with one of the strongest predictors of resistance to saline in the field and greenhouse-grown plants being how vigorously they grew — but what they found surprised them.
Researchers had assumed that the healthy, more salt-resistant plants have a way of avoiding excessive uptake from the soil, but this was not true. The healthy plants had plenty of sodium ions in their tissues, leading researchers to question predominant ideas about how some plants deal with salt stress.
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"We were surprised to find that the amount of salt the plants accumulated in their leaves wasn't as important to their overall performance as previously thought," Magda Julkowska, an assistant professor at the Boyce Thompson Institute and lead author of the study, said in a release shared by EurekAlert. "This challenges some existing ideas about how plants cope with salt stress and opens up new avenues for research."
The five promising cultivars originate from two regions in Peru known for having some of the most arid conditions in the world, which could explain why they coped best with the harsh conditions.
Researchers are now searching the cultivated currant tomatoes for genes to breed into other tomato crops, allowing them to thrive in salty soil. So far, researchers have identified three areas on the genome that have genes with these beneficial traits, which were surprisingly not previously associated with tolerance to salt.
The next step is to use the cultivars to learn how they can strengthen tomato growth in salty soil, and researchers further hope the benefits will go beyond tomatoes. Per the news release, the findings could potentially inform breeding efforts for salinity tolerance in other crops as well, hopefully leading to larger growing regions, more stable yields in the face of changing climates, and possibly tomatoes that need less water to grow.
"These specific genotypes can be used as allele donors for further improving crop performance and developing more sustainable agriculture," Julkowska said.
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