“Quinabactin treatments elicit guard cell closure, suppress water loss, and promote drought tolerance in adult Arabidopsis and soybean plants,” reads the study by Cutler and Masanori Okamotoa.

“The effects of quinabactin are sufficiently similar to those of ABA that it is able to rescue multiple phenotypes observed in the ABA-deficient mutant aba2. … Our results demonstrate that ABA receptors can be chemically controlled to enable plant protection against water stress and define the dimeric receptors as key targets for chemical modulation of vegetative ABA responses.”

The treatment closes microscopic holes in leaves called stomata, through which plants take in carbon dioxide and give off water vapor, reads a report by Bradley J. Fikes in U-T San Diego. UCR now is in talks with Syngenta Biotechnology about commercializing the discovery.

Cutler told Fikes the product could be made into a spray to be applied when water runs short. The technology could also be used to make plants drought-resistant, either through traditional breeding or genetic modification.

The research builds on a 2009 study, according to Fikes’s report. The research is supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, Syngenta Biotechnology Inc. and the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science.  FG

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—Compiled from USDA-FSA and U-T San Diego reports