The evolution of inbreeding is common throughout the angiosperms, although little is known about the developmental and genetic processes involved. Lycopersicon pimpinellifolium (currant tomato) is a self-compatible species with variation in outcrossing rate correlated with floral morphology. Mature flowers from inbreeding and outcrossing populations differ greatly in characters affecting mating...

The flowering process in grapevine (Vitis vinifera) takes place in buds and extends for two consecutive growing seasons. To understand the genetic and molecular mechanisms underlying this process, we have characterized grapevine bud development, cloned the grapevine FLORICAULA/LEAFY (FLO/LFY) ortholog, VFL, and analyzed its expression patterns during vegetative and reproductive development. Flo...

Plant productivity depends on inflorescences, flower-bearing shoots that originate from the stem cell populations of shoot meristems. Inflorescence architecture determines flower production, which can vary dramatically both between and within species. In tomato plants, formation of multiflowered inflorescences depends on a precisely timed process of meristem maturation mediated by the transcrip...

BACKGROUND Plant species have several mechanisms to avoid selfing such as dichogamy or a self-incompatibility response. Dichogamy in a single flower may reduce autogamy but, to avoid geitonogamy, plants must show flowering synchronization among all their flowers (i.e. synchronous dichogamy). It is hypothesized that one species would not simultaneously show synchronous dichogamy and self-incompa...

Consumption of cut flowers is going to increase day by day in Pakistan. It is related with the rising living standards, education and electronic media that have promoted this business in recent years. The production and consumption of cut flowers has increased over the past decade and this increase is expected to continue. However, local consumption and demand is yet to be satisfied. Gladiolus ...

Pistachio yield are often negatively affected by some physiological problems such as abscission of inflorescence buds and fruits, deformed or blank nuts, and non-split shells. In the present study the effect of exogenous application of arginine (Arg) (a substrate for nitric oxide (NO) synthase) and sodium nitroproside (SNP), as a NO-donor was investigated on yield production, fruit and inflores...

We present a model for the gradual evolution towards dioecy in cosexual plants with geitonogamous selfing. We show how geitonogamous selfing (i.e., transfer of pollen between flowers on the same plant) can facilitate the evolution of dioecy (i.e., separate male and female individuals) in cosexual plants (i.e., both sexual functions on the same plant). We study the effect of parameters such as i...

a field experiment involving red clover varieties k-39, k-17, una and viola was established on an acidic (phh2o 4.8) soil to evaluate the effects of foliar application of cobalt (a beneficial nutrient for efficient nitrogen fixation) on seed yield, and on seed yield components. the foliar spray of the crop was carried out using cobalt nitrate [co(no3)2] with the treatments: one application at t...