New path towards a better rice architecture

New plant type (NPT) or ideal plant architecture (IPA) is an attractive way of increasing yield potential by promoting high resource use efficiency combined with better lodging resistance. In a recent paper in Cell Research , Wang et al . describe how a QTL they identified could bring about the desired NPT architecture by elucidating the role of its encoded gene in controlling the stability of IPA1/OsSPL14, a previously reported NPT protein, in the context of ubiquitination.