Plants Under Pressure: Creating the Knowledge and Tools Needed to Predict and Manage Plant Water Stress

The Focus Group “Plants Under Pressure: Creating the Knowledge and Tools Needed to Predict and Manage Plant Water Stress” involves Dieter Schwarz Courageous Research Grant holder Prof. Tim Brodribb (University of Tasmania) and his host Prof. Mutez Ahmed (Root-Soil Interaction, TUM School of Life Sciences).

All plants have a daily pulse caused by the rise and fall of vascular pressure as they respond to daily environmental change. This Focus Group seeks to translate this dynamic behaviour into a diagnostic language of plant stress that informs and predicts the performance and vulnerability of plants to climatic change. This strategic collaboration will connect these domains of water flow, creating a new integrated model of how plants and soil interact to control global plant growth and hydrology. New tools designed by Prof. Brodribb’s team will be combined with state of the art imaging (neutron and micro-CT) and precision growth facilities at TUM (Ahmed team) to uncover the dynamic interactions between roots and soils. Experimental studies will create new understanding that will enable us to predict how much water plants need and what types of atmospheric conditions will lead to the death of crops and forests. Novel plant-pressure sensing instruments will be used to establish pressure-monitoring plots in World Heritage Forest in Tasmania and in experimental forest stations in Germany. These installations will allow us to validate the models created in the laboratory and to tune the performance of these models to achieve high precision in the prediction of plant stress. A combination of pressure-driven modelling and in-plant sensing of plant-pressure will allow us to make quantitative predictions about the limits of survival for species in future, hotter climates. This collaboration has the potential to revolutionize species conservation, while at the same time creating an exciting new basis for irrigation management in future crops.