Tag: Genetics

If you weren’t around in the '80s, you missed some great times; the music, the fashion, the flower genetics! This historical perspective article by David Smythe nicely sums up those heady days with an account of how Arabidopsis thaliana blasted into the ranks of a top model organism, in part through…

Harvest index (HI) is the ratio of grain yield to the sum of grain, leaf, and stem biomass. HI is affected by environmental conditions such as water availability. Previously, carbohydrate remobilization from stem to grain has been shown to be affected by drought  (which in rice contributes to C remobilization)…

Nuclear DNA is inherited from both parents during sexual reproduction, but organellar DNA is (usually) exclusively received from the mother. However, stable biparental inheritance of organellar DNA has also been reported in plants and animals but its molecular mechanism is unknown. Using quantitative…

This is an interesting paper that grabbed my attention from the very first line: “Tomatoes are the second most valuable crop in the USA”. Of course, a key trait in these important fruits is their flavor, something the Harry Klee team at the University of Florida have been studying for years. Here,…

Increasing nitrogen-use efficiency (NUE) and seed protein content are important for maize breeding. Modern maize hybrids have 6.5-16.5% seed protein content, while the wild ancestor of maize, called teosinte, has ~30% seed protein content. In addition, teosinte (accession Ames 21814) contains notably…

Modern rice is descended from a perennial grass, which through millennia of selection evolved into an annual “one-sow, one-harvest” crop. However, it has become apparent that perennial grains have the potential to decrease soil erosion and competition, as well as lower the labor required to produce…

Artificial selection has significantly increased crop yield. However, this has come at the cost of compromising abiotic stress tolerance. Stomatal aperture has an important role in abiotic stress tolerance. Abiotic stress induces stomatal closure and involves the intracellular production of reactive…

The cross between genetically distant parents is an essential source of genetic variation. This process, known as hybridization, might result in the loss of adaptive gene combinations due to the introduction of non-adaptive alleles. However, Imaizumi and colleagues show this is not the case with weedy…