Roots primed for better phosphate uptake Phosphate is a key resource for plants, and remediating phosphate deficiency drives considerable fertilizer use. In low-phosphate conditions, roots make more root hairs, which makes them better able to take up what little phosphate can be found. Wendrich et al. performed single-cell transcriptomics on the developing Arabidopsis root and queried the resulting gene-expression atlas for responses related to vascular development. The authors found that signals regulating root hair development began in the inner vasculature of the root with transcription factors that drove the production of the hormone cytokinin. Response cascades identified through the transcriptome database pointed to genes in epidermal cells that regulate root hair development. Science , this issue p. eaay4970