Tag: Applied Plant Biology

Flowering time is regulated by FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT), its paralog TWIN SISTER OF FT (TSF), and related proteins.  Banana (Musa spp.) is an economically-important day-neutral plant with a months-long vegetative phase prior to flowering.  The banana cultivar Grand Nain has 14 FT/TSF-like genes spread…

Rhododendron dauricum (Ericaceae), a native of northeastern Asia, produces unique secondary metabolites including daurichromenic acid (DCA). DCA has attracted considerable attention as a medicinal resource because this compound is one of the most effective natural products with anti-HIV properties in…

This week’s blog was written by Dr Craig Cormick, the Creative Director of ThinkOutsideThe. He is one of Australia’s leading science communicators, with over 30 years’ experience working with agencies such as CSIRO, Questacon and Federal Government Departments.   So what do you think…

Watson and Ghosh et al. describe protocols to accelerate the lifecycle of several crop species using "speed breeding", which essentially involves extending the daylength to 22 hours with supplemental lighting. They describe methods and results from glasshouse and growth chamber speed breeding. In spite…

Li et al. describe an important new genetic resource, a huge database of Kitaake rice mutants. Kitaake is a short-generation variety of Oryza sativa L. ssp. japonica well suited for genetic studies. The authors sequenced more than 1500 fast-neutron-induced mutants and identified more than 91,000 mutations…

Ali et al. describe a rice breeding strategy to improve abiotic stress tolerance as well as to accelerate the speed to achieving homozygosity. The researchers named this particular technique as “Green Super Rice” (GSR) breeding technology. They use a backcross (BC) breeding approach to fix breeding…

Tomatoes normally grow as multiple flowers along a single branch. Soyk et al. explored a large collection of wild and domesticated accessions to identify those with branched inflorescences, which should be able to produce more fruit per plant. They identified a few related branchy mutants which they…

The Science Show on Radio National, Australia, interviewed Robert Furbank, Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis, Australian National University, on efforts to engineer C4 photosynthesis into rice. http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/turbo-charging-crops-to-feed-the-billions/8541396