To flower or not to flower

CSIRO Plant Industry scientists have moved one step closer to understanding flowering and how its control is reset in every new generation.

All grain crops rely on flowering and successful pollination to produce seed. The Flowering Locus C (FLC) gene prevents flowering in the model plant Arabidopsis.

When plants are exposed to a long period of cold, such as winter, FLC is inhibited, allowing flowering to occur in spring. Once FLC has been inhibited, it will not be reactivated during the life of an annual plant. FLC activity is however re-established in the seed, ensuring the new generation will also flower after winter.

CSIRO Plant Industry’s Dr Candice Sheldon and colleagues in Canberra observed that the FLC activity is re-established at different times in the maternal and paternal FLC genes that merge to form the embryo inside the seed. This suggests that there are distinct mechanisms controlling the resetting of FLC activity of the two parental genes.

Dr Sheldon and her colleagues now hope to apply their discoveries towards producing crops better adapted to Australia’s changing conditions, one of CSIRO’s long term goals. Drought stress causes wheat pollen to become sterile due to genes that may be controlled in a similar way to FLC. If these genes could be inhibited, the pollen could retain its fertility under water stress conditions, ensuring a better wheat yield in dry years.

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