Extracellular alkalinization has long been recognized as a hallmark of plant cell-surface
receptor activation, including during pattern-triggered immunity (PTI); yet the
mechanisms driving elicitor-induced alkalinization and its role in plant signaling remain
unclear. Here, we demonstrate that inhibition of autoinhibited H+-ATPases (AHAs) is
required for elicitor-induced extracellular alkalinization. This alkalinization is essential
for immune and cell wall damage signaling mediated by diverse plasma membrane-localised receptor kinases (RKs) likely through modulation of ligand-receptor
interactions. Mechanistically, RKs transduce elicitor-triggered signaling via the
receptor-like cytoplasmic kinase BOTRYTIS-INDUCED KINASE 1 (BIK1), which
inhibits AHA activity by disrupting AHA-GENERAL REGULATORY FACTOR (GRF)
interactions through a conserved phosphorylation event. This phosphorylation-driven
extracellular alkalinization module is required for disease resistance and cell wall
damage responses initiated by ligand-RK pairs. Our findings uncover a conserved
phosphorelay circuit that broadly regulates extracellular alkalinization to coordinate RK signaling, illuminating a general mechanism for RK activation and stress resilience.