Phytohormone-Mediated Induction of Red Colour in the Flower Florets of a Cultivar of Dyer’s Saffron (Carthamus tinctorius)

Koshi Saito, Ken-Ichi Miyakawa, Takayuki Murata and Yuji Enomoto Department of Bioscience and Technology, School of Engineering, Hokkaido Tokai University, Sapporo 005, Japan Z. Naturforsch. 53c, 828-832 (1998); received August 14, 1997/April 16, 1998 Mogami-Benibana, Dyer’s Saffron (C. tinctorius) Cultivar. Red Colour Appearance, Flower Floret, Phytohormone Mediated Induction Gibberellic acid was fed to a homogenate of Mogami-Benibana, a cultivar of dyer’s saffron (Carthamus tinctorius), at a 100 n m level. After incubation for 60 min at 25 or 37 °C, the effect of externally supplied gibberellic acid on enzyme activities and the glucose level were investigated. Gibberellic acid enhances the activity of glucose oxidase by about 52%. It in­ duces also a weak (9%) increase of glucosidase activity. Gibberellic acid increases the glucose content by about 6% during the initial 30-min incubation. The results relate to the red colour appearance in Mogami-Benibana at the later stage