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Understanding plant survival mechanisms in degraded, drought-affected, and nutrient-limited soils can help mitigate the effects of climate change on crop production. Roots extend deep into soil through straight, tubular root hairs that facilitate resource uptake. In this study, we found a unicellular structure, termed the "hooked hair," characterized by a pointed hook morphology that supports seedling establishment prior to root hair emergence. We observed a phenotypic response of hooked hairs to phosphorus and nitrogen limitations. Co-expression analysis identified gene signatures associated with nutrient transport and suberin biosynthesis in hooked hairs. These biological functions are likely critical for seedling establishment, nutrient acquisition, and protection against biotic stress. Therefore, the hooked hair offers potential for the development climate-resilient seedlings, reducing reliance on unsustainable fertilizers and securing agricultural productivity. 

The hooked hair RNA-seq data generated in this study were deposited in the National Center for 658 Biotechnology Information (NCBI) with the GEO accessions: GSE261051, and 659 GSE285154. 

An increase in the frequency and intensity of heat waves, floods, droughts and other environmental stresses, resulting from climate change, is threatening agricultural food production worldwide. Heat waves are especially problematic to grain yields, as the reproductive processes of almost all our main grain crops are highly sensitive to heat. At times, heat waves can occur together with drought, high ozone levels, pathogen infection and/or waterlogging stress that suppress the overall process of plant cooling by transpiration. We recently reported that under conditions of heat and water-deficit stress combination, the stomata on sepals and pods of soybean (Glycine max) remain open, while the stomata on leaves close. This process, termed ‘differential transpiration’, enabled the cooling of reproductive organs, while leaf temperature increased owing to suppressed transpiration. In this review article, we focus on the impacts on crops of heat waves occurring in isolation and of heat waves combined with drought or waterlogging stress, address the main processes impacted in plants by these stresses and discuss ways to mitigate the negative effects of isolated heat waves and of heat waves that occur together with other stresses (i.e. stress combination), on crops, with a focus on the process of differential transpiration. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Crops under stress: can we mitigate the impacts of climate change on agriculture and launch the ‘Resilience Revolution’?’. 

This raw data belongs to the pheno-transcriptomics characterization of hooked hairs project. This dataset contains the microscopy images used for the phenotyping of hooked hairs. Two systems were tested: 1) Hydroponics (Microscopy using Zeiss Axioscope) and 2)Agar system (Microscopy using LEICA DMI6000). The images were captured in 10X magnification (~100 um). Each folder contains the set of data for different systems in different growing conditions.