ENGINEERINGNET.BE – Like all living things, plants are also subject to natural laws and are exposed to mechanical forces, for example because cells pull on each other or because a fungus tries to penetrate.
The researchers from the Dutch Green Tissue Engineering consortium will study how plant cells, with an internal pressure greater than that in a champagne bottle, sense forces and how these forces control growth, development and defense.
With this knowledge, Green Tissue Engineering will develop new strategies to improve the propagation and defense of crops.
Over the past decade, materials research has contributed intensively to biomedical sciences and regenerative medicine. Examples include implant coatings and polymer-based drug delivery systems.
Surprisingly, collaboration between materials researchers and plant scientists is still limited. Green Tissue Engineering will therefore initiate an innovative approach in which materials research and plant science come together, and material platforms for plant tissue engineering can be developed.
This offers opportunities for a completely new multidisciplinary field that can, for example, also look at alternatives to plastics in agriculture that are not degradable. For example, agricultural plastic and seed coatings.
The consortium consists of the University of Groningen, Wageningen University, VU Amsterdam, TU Eindhoven, Radboud University, UUtrecht and ULeiden.
The Dutch government has awarded a subsidy of 1.5 million euros to this research.
Tags: Research mechanical properties plants crops
