Crops grown on alkaline soils, which cover about one-third of the world s land, are prone to iron-deficiency stress because of the low solubility of iron there. To acquire the insoluble iron efficiently, some graminaceous plants have developed a unique strategy characterized by the synthesis and secretion of an iron-chelator phytosiderophore and by a system for the specific uptake of iron (III) in its complex.[1] Mugineic acid (MA, 1) was first identified as a ...