Dynamic control of plant water use using designed ABA receptor agonists

Plant thirst quenched without water Drought causes many billions of dollars of annual losses to farmers worldwide. Central to a plant's water use efficiency are signaling pathways regulated by the hormone abscisic acid and its receptors. Vaidya et al. screened a pool of candidate small molecules and used structure-guided design to optimize the function of an abscisic acid receptor agonist (see the Perspective by Phillips and Sussman). Application of the agonist protected Arabidopsis , wheat, and tomato from underwatering. Science , this issue p. eaaw8848 ; see also p. 416