b'Golden light on maturing soybean pods highlights the final stage of a season-long stress study.PHOTO: RON MITTLERAnother option is to use genome editingIf a big company takes it on, itll go for example, increasing stomatal densityfaster, he says. Even with them, I hope on reproductive tissues or keeping themwithin five years well have better chances. open longer. Its sort of a race, because climate change His lab is now evaluating thousands ofhappens, and scientists and companies soybean genotypes, including parentalare trying to catch up.introduction lines, to identify those withFor Mittler, this discovery ranks among more effective differential transpiration. Atthe most exciting in his career. the same time, theyre testing geneticallyAfter we published our papers in modified soybean plants in the green- soybean, very quickly Chinese groups house to validate targeted changes todescribed this in tomato, he says. I think stomatal function. most annual plants will probably do that.We can alter the genes that controlHes also seeing growing recognition the number of stomata on the reproduc- from the crop science community. tive tissues, Mittler says. Also, we canI was invited to give talks at big crop play around with the regulationforconferences, and people told me this was example, keep them open longer. So therereally exciting. I think we found something are two ways: one based on anatomy andimportant.development, and one based on regula- And while the science is exciting, the tion. urgency is real. Initially it was really hard to convince From Lab Bench to Breeder Bench Researchers use a portable gas exchangegranting agencies and journals to get Mittlers hope is that once these markerssystem to measure differential transpirationfunding for this, Mittler says. Now climate are better defined, commercial breed- in soybean leaves, providing insight intochange is causing these stress combina-ing programs will pick up the work andhow plants regulate water loss under stress.tionsdrought and heat, even flooding accelerate delivery to the market. But, hePHOTO: RON MITTLER and heatand people are realizing we says, the scale of industry involvement willneed solutions.SWbe critical.52/ SEEDWORLD.COMDECEMBER 2025'