With the goal of creating faster and more efficient methods of generating unique Ac/Ds insertional mutants in a population of Fragaria vesca, various methods of seed germination, kanamycin screening, and the effects of varying nitrogen fertilization on diploid strawberry have been examined. Seed germination was improved to 42% in B5 liquid medium compared to _ on MS solid medium. Kanamycin scre...

Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascades are highly conserved signaling modules in eukaryotes, including yeasts, plants and animals. MAPK cascades are responsible for protein phosphorylation during signal transduction events, and typically consist of three protein kinases: MAPK, MAPK kinase, and MAPK kinase kinase. In this current study, we identified a total of 12 FvMAPK, 7 FvMAPKK, 73...

Strawberry is one of the most valued fruit worldwide. Modern cultivated varieties (Fragaria × ananassa) exhibit large fruits, with intense color and prolonged shell life. Yet, these valuable traits were attained at the cost of the intensity and the variety of the aroma of the berry, two characteristics highly appreciated by consumers. Wild species display smaller fruits and reduced yield compar...

Understanding the emic concept of wild edible plants in specific cultural settings is important to map local perceptions on nature. As there is no specific word to describe the concept of a wild edible plant in Estonian, we asked to list plants belonging to a category described by two partly overlapping phrases: looduslik taim (natural plant) and metsikult kasvav taim (plant that grows wild). A...

Polyploidy is a pivotal process in plant evolution as it increase gene redundancy and morphological intricacy but due to the complexity of polysomic inheritance we have only few genetic maps of autopolyploid organisms. A robust mapping framework is particularly important in polyploid crop species, rose included (2n = 4x = 28), where the objective is to study multiallelic interactions that contr...

S-RNase-based gametophytic self-incompatibility (GSI) has evolved once before the split of the Asteridae and Rosidae. This conclusion is based on the phylogenetic history of the S-RNase that determines pistil specificity. In Rosaceae, molecular characterizations of Prunus species, and species from the tribe Pyreae (i.e., Malus, Pyrus, Sorbus) revealed different numbers of genes determining S-po...

Seed and fruit set are established during and soon after fertilization and determine seed and fruit number, their final size and, hence, yield potential. These processes are highly sensitive to biotic and abiotic stresses, which often lead to seed and fruit abortion. Here, we review the regulation of assimilate partitioning, including the potential roles of recently identified sucrose efflux tr...

The strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa) FaGAST gene encodes a small protein with 12 cysteine residues conserved in the C-terminal region similar to a group of proteins identified in other species with diverse assigned functions such as cell division, elongation, or elongation arrest. This gene is expressed in the fruit receptacle, with two peaks during ripening at the white and the red-ripe stages...