Understanding how the plants respond to environmental signals and to what extent we are able to manipulate them to override these signals is likely to be very important for continued improvements to crop performance. In future it may be possible that manipulating the expression of the PXY and CLE genes can override environmental signals that normally alter plant growth.The team now plans to work with a forest products company to test their findings in the field.The study was funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.