Arabidopsis Growth Conditions Optimization

Arabidopsis thaliana ecotype Columbia-0 was used for all experiments. Seeds were surface-sterilized (20% bleach, 0.5%SDS), rinsed with sterile water and sown on half-strength Murashige & Skoog medium including vitamins (Duchefa Biochemie), containing 0,1% MES monohydrate buffer (Duchefa Biochemie) and 1% v/w Daishin agar (Duchefa Biochemie). Salts were added from a 1 mM stock in the desired concentration before autoclaving. The pH of all media was set at 5.8 using 0.1 N KOH to prevent any harmful acidification effects as described by Babayigit et al. (Babayigit et al., 2016a (link)) Seeds were sown on petri dishes (9 cm diameter) containing 20 mL medium, stratified (4°C, dark) for 4 days to synchronize germination, and afterwards placed in a climate chamber (16 hours light period, 22°C, photosynthetic active radiation 150 μmol photons/m^2/s).