In Arabidopsis thaliana, DICER-LIKE 1 and DICER-LIKE 3 are involved in the generation of small RNAs. Double mutants between dicer-like 1 and dicer-like 3 exhibit a delay in flowering that is caused by increased expression of the floral repressor FLOWERING LOCUS C. This delayed-flowering phenotype is similar to that of autonomous-pathway mutants, and the flowering delay can be overcome by vernal...

The flowering periodicity and intensity of some subalpine trees and shrubs at Pegleg Flat, Arthur's Pass National Park, was recorded from 1981/82 to 1984/85. Moderate to heavy flowering of most species in 1981/82 was followed by two years of little or no flowering in 1982/83 and 1983/84; almost all species observed flowered heavily in 1984/85. No clear correlation was found between flowering in...

Flowering time in rice (Oryza sativa L.) is determined primarily by daylength (photoperiod), and natural variation in flowering time is due to quantitative trait loci involved in photoperiodic flowering. To date, genetic analysis of natural variants in rice flowering time has resulted in the positional cloning of at least 12 quantitative trait genes (QTGs), including our recently cloned QTGs, H...

Plants synchronise their flowering with the seasons to maximise reproductive fitness. While plants sense environmental conditions largely through the leaves, the developmental decision to flower occurs in the shoot apex, requiring the transmission of flowering information, sometimes over quite long distances. Interestingly, despite the enormous diversity of reproductive strategies and lifestyle...

Plant phenology is known to depend on many different environmental variables, but soil microbial communities have rarely been acknowledged as possible drivers of flowering time. Here, we tested separately the effects of four naturally occurring soil microbiomes and their constituent soil chemistries on flowering phenology and reproductive fitness of Boechera stricta, a wild relative of Arabidop...

A plant needs to flower at a suitable time of the year in order to produce a large number of viable seeds. Given its importance, it is not surprising that flower initiation is controlled by many environmental and endogenous factors. Physiological research in different plant species has identified numerous of these factors, leading to a multifactorial model of the control of flowering (Bernier, ...

Molecular analysis of floral induction in Arabidopsis has identified several flowering time genes related to 4 response networks defined by the autonomous, gibberellin, photoperiod, and vernalization pathways. Although grass flowering processes include ancestral functions shared by both mono- and dicots, they have developed their own mechanisms to transmit floral induction signals. Despite its ...

Day length perceived by a leaf is a major environmental factor that controls the timing of flowering. It has been believed that a mobile, long-distance signal called florigen is produced in the leaf, and is transported to the shoot apex where it triggers floral morphogenesis. Grafting experiments have shown that florigen is transmissible from a donor plant that has been subjected to inductive d...

Transcription of the vernalization1 gene (VRN1) is induced by prolonged cold (vernalization) to trigger flowering of cereal crops, such as wheat and barley. VRN1 encodes a MADS box transcription factor that promotes flowering by regulating the expression of other genes. Here we use transcriptome sequencing (RNA-seq) and chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing (ChIP-seq) to identify direct targ...

In many plants the transition from vegetative growth to flowering is controlled by environmental cues. One of these cues is day length or photoperiod, which synchronizes flowering of many species with the changing seasons. Recently, advances have been made in understanding the molecular mechanisms that confer photoperiodic control of flowering and, in particular, how inductive events occurring ...