Creating shorter, stronger plants.

• Position: Genetically engineered tobacco plants

A Washington University plant biologist has found a single gene in the barley plant that controls several traits--height, maturity, drought resistance, and strength--in transgenic (genetically manipulated) plants. David Ho, associate professor of biology, discovered the gene, which is activated during a stressful time of plant development, and genetically engineered it into tobacco plants.

The impact of such a find is far-reaching. While bigger often is assumed to be better, it is not always so in the world of horticulture. Each year, for instance, growers around the globe are robbed of plant yield because of a condition called "lodging," whereby plants such as wheat, rice, and soybeans fall over from their own weight and height. Shorter, stronger plants could eliminate this problem. Drought is the biggest economic stress on crop yield worldwide. Plants that could withstand this common stress would lessen the importance of rain or costly, and resource-depleting, irrigation. Even homeowners could benefit. The gene someday might be incorporated into turf grass that would stay a certain height, withstand drought, and green-up earlier in the spring.

"One gene alone triggers these seemingly unrelated traits," Ho explains. "When you compare the genetically engineered plants with the control...