A major challenge in sustainable agriculture is to secure crop productivity under adverse environmental conditions in order to match the growing world population. Plants are exposed to multiple abiotic stresses such as submergence -an increasing problem due to global climate change- and cadmium accumulation in soil, resulting in important crop losses. Ethylene is known to be a crucial player in stress control. The non-proteinogenic three-membered ring alpha-amino acid, ACC, occurs as different metabolites in planta and acts, apart from being the direct precursor of ethylene, also as a signalling molecule independent from ethylene. This project aims to unravel how and under which form ACC regulates normal plant growth besides the plant’s response to flooding and heavy metal stress.