Efficient methods to explore plant agro-biodiversity for climate change adaptive traits are urgently required. The focused identification of germplasm strategy (FIGS) is one such approach. FIGS works on the premise that germplasm is likely to reflect the selection pressures of the environment in which it developed. Environmental parameters describing plant germplasm collection sites are used as...

Sequence-related amplified polymorphism (SRAP) markers were used to assess the genetic diversity and relationship among 58 faba bean (Vicia faba L.) genotypes. Fourteen SRAP primer combinations amplified a total of 1036 differently sized well-resolved peaks (fragments), of which all were polymorphic with a 0.96 PIC value and discriminated all of the 58 faba bean genotypes. An average pairwise ...

Some damage caused in tobacco necrosis virus by u.v. radiation could be repaired in darkness in Chenopodium amaranticolor (dark reactivation) but not in French bean or in tobacco. By contrast, photoreactivation of the irradiated virus was observed in French bean and in tobacco but not in Chenopodium. The kind of damage in u.v.-irradiated virus that is susceptible to repair by photoreactivation ...

Although radiation-induced chromosome exchanges are not distributed among cells according to a Poisson distribution, chromatid interchanges are. In Vicia faba the lack of fit to a Poisson distribution has been attributed to the occurrence of only two sites per cell where the chromosomes are close enough to form exchanges if broken. When chromatid aberrations are induced, after chromosomal dupli...

Triton X-100 solubilized chloroplast DNA but not nuclear DNA from a mixture of chloroplasts and nuclei. The buoyant density of chloroplast DNA was different from that of the satellite DNA in all of the species examined (Phaseolus coccineus, Cucumis sativus, Cucumis melo, Antirrhinum majus, Vicia faba, Oenothera fruiticosa youngii). Chloroplast DNA constituted between 4.3% and 0.25% of the total...

Detached broad bean (Vicia faba L.) leaflets were water stressed; within 15 minutes, guard-cell abscisic acid (ABA) concentration increased ninefold. This result eliminates the apparent discrepancy raised by reports of no correlation between initial water-stress effects on stomata and leaf ABA concentration. Six hours after stress relief, guard-cell ABA concentration was near the prestress valu...