If the new discovery can be applied to commonly grown plants, this means that we might be able to secure better crops during heatwaves.

According to Euronews.green, some regions on Earth are as much as ten times more exposed to heatwaves, due to climate change.

Weather phenomena like droughts and abnormally high temperatures usually don't affect plants directly, but they mare them vulnerable against insect attacks and diseases.

This happens because the plant's immune system gets weaker.

Entire food crops can be affected if something like this occurs, which happened to bananas not too long ago and the current effects of climate change take their toll on Italy's rice and corn cultures.

Researchers in the US from Yale University, University of Berkeley, California and Duke University alongside scientists at Tao Chen Huazhong University in China claim they discovered how high temperatures affect the plants' ability to fight potential dangers.

Researchers looked into the defense systems of plants, which is ensured by the salicylic acid.

Whenever the plant feels a possible danger, the levels of this hormone can increase by as much as seven times.

It turns out that quite a few of the plant's functions, including releasing salicylic acid, are related to a master gene called CBP60g.

When temperatures get too high, this master gene stops functioning entirely, making the plant's immune system ineffective.

By creating a mutated plant which has the master gene permanently activated, scientists discovered that it was able to fight off dangers even in more extreme heat conditions.

Tomatoes, rice and rapeseed have a similar behavior to the thale cress, which was the test subject for the experiment. They claim that mutated rapeseed with CBP60g permanently active behaves well during high temperatures.

So far, researchers were not able to determine any modification in the food's taste or any potential side effects they might have on consumers.