In sugar beet (Beta vulgaris altissima), bolting tolerance is an essential agronomic trait reflecting the bolting response of genotypes after vernalization. Genes involved in induction of sugar beet bolting have now been identified, and evidence suggests that epigenetic factors are involved in their control. Indeed, the time course and amplitude of DNA methylation variations in the shoot apical...

Vernalization is required for floral initiation in Dendrobium. Interestingly, those beneficial effects can also be achieved by exogenous cytokinin application in greenhouses. Thus, an as yet unknown crosstalk/interaction may exist between vernalization and cytokinin signaling pathways. In this study, we showed, by de novo transcriptome assembly using RNA-seq data from both vegetative and reprod...

Brassica rapa displays enormous morphological diversity, with leafy vegetables, turnips and oil crops. Turnips (Brassica rapa subsp. rapa) represent one of the morphotypes, which form tubers and can be used to study the genetics underlying storage organ formation. In the present study we investigated several characteristics of an extensive turnip collection comprising 56 accessions from both As...

Vernalization, the acceleration of flowering by winter, involves cold-induced epigenetic silencing of Arabidopsis FLC. This process has been shown to require conserved Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2) components including the Su(z)12 homologue, VRN2, and two plant homeodomain (PHD) finger proteins, VRN5 and VIN3. However, the sequence of events leading to FLC repression was unclear. Here we...

The MADS domain--containing transcription factor FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC) acts as an inhibitor of flowering and is a convergence point for several pathways that regulate flowering time in Arabidopsis. In naturally occurring late-flowering ecotypes, the FRIGIDA (FRI) gene acts to increase FLC levels, whereas the autonomous floral promotion pathway and vernalization act to reduce FLC expression. P...

The frequency and distribution of the major vernalization requirement genes and their effects on growth habits were studied. Of the 551 bread wheat genotypes tested, seven allelic combinations of the three Vrn-1 genes were found to be responsible for the spring habit, three for the facultative habit and one for the winter habit. The three Vrn-1 genes behaved additively with the dominant allele ...

Oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.) is a major oil crop which is grown worldwide. Adaptation to different environments and regional climatic conditions involves variation in the regulation of flowering time. Winter types have a strong vernalization requirement whereas semi-winter and spring types have a low vernalization requirement or flower without exposure to cold, respectively. In Arabidopsis ...

The aim of this work was to establish the role of factors that may trigger elongation growth in the dehardening response, namely temperature during daylight, photoperiod and vernalization. Fully cold-acclimated seedlings of winter (with incomplete vernalization) and spring oilseed rape were subjected to deacclimation under temperatures of 2/12, 12/2, 12/12, 12/20, 20/12 and 20/20 degrees C (day...

We have analyzed the flowering behavior of two Arabidopsis ecotypes: the laboratory strain Landsberg erecta (Ler) and an ecotype from the tropical Cape Verde Islands (Cvi). They differ little in their flowering phenotypes and in their responses to photoperiod length changes and to vernalization treatment. However, segregating populations derived from crosses between them showed a much larger va...