A peer-reviewed study published Thursday in the journal Plant and Cell Physiology suggests that ethanol — or alcohol — may help plants survive periods of drought, even for two weeks without water.
When plants are deprived of water, they naturally produce ethanol. Although the reasons for its production are unknown, it led researchers at the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science in Japan to theorize that administering alcohol to plants could protect them from drought-related deaths.
“The discovery came in the process of finding compounds that make plants resilient to stress,” Motoaki Seki, the study’s lead author, told CNN.
The results are useful not only for the world’s gardens, but also for farms that grow essential crops such as rice and wheat. Drought-proof staples could help alleviate food insecurity currently affecting many parts of the world and exacerbated by heat waves, Russia’s war in Ukraine and supply chain problems.
The researchers said ethanol is a “useful and easy” way to increase food production during times of drought or water scarcity around the world.
To arrive at their findings, the researchers grew wheat and rice plants, watered them regularly, and then added ethanol to the soil of a group of plants over three days. They then withheld water from both groups for two weeks and found that drunk plants performed better than sober ones. About 75% of the ethanol-treated wheat and rice plants survived after re-irrigation, while less than 5% of the untreated plants did.
“[The] External application of ethanol to plants would be a useful, simple and less expensive agricultural method to improve drought tolerance in various plants,” Seki said, since genetic modification of plants would not be required.
However, he cautioned that the ethanol must be used sparingly because “a higher concentration of ethanol stunts plant growth.” In other words, don’t try it at home.
The study also looked at how ethanol protects a plant. Using Arabidopsis, a small plant commonly used in experiments, the researchers discovered that when ethanol-treated specimens were deprived of water, tiny openings on the leaf surface called stomata closed, retaining water and heat.
Seki and his colleagues studied Arabidopsis gene expression and found that the ethanol-treated plants began behaving as if they were experiencing drought even before they were actually deprived of water.
This gene expression gives plants a head start in preparing for a drought, Seki explained, adding that the ethanol is also used by plants to make the sugars needed to produce energy.
Seki told CNN that he and his team will soon start testing ethanol on crops in real fields.