Saline or alkaline soils present a strong stress on plants that together may be even more deleterious than alone. Australia’s soils are old and contain large, sometimes overlapping, areas of high salt and alkalinity. Acacia and other Australian plant lineages have evolved in this stressful soil environment and present an opportunity to understand the evolution of salt and alkalinity tolerance. ...

Damage by late spring frost is a risk deciduous trees have to cope with in order to optimize the length of their growing season. The timing of spring phenological development plays a crucial role, not only at the species level, but also at the population and individual level, since fresh new leaves are especially vulnerable. For the pronounced late spring frost in May 2011 in Germany, we studie...

The response to vernalization and the expression of genes associated with responses to vernalization (VRNH1, VRNH2, and VRNH3) and photoperiod (PPDH1 and PPDH2) were analysed in four barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) lines: 'Alexis' (spring), 'Plaisant' (winter), SBCC058, and SBCC106 (Spanish inbred lines), grown under conditions of vernalization and short days (VSD) or no vernalization and long days...

Introduction Paramagnetic chemical exchange saturation transfer (PARACEST) agents use water molecule exchange with lanthanide ions (Ln) and radiofrequency (RF) spin saturation to create negative contrast in MRI [1]. If the rate of exchange between the bound and bulk water locations is much slower than their frequency difference (i.e. kex << Δω) then RF spin saturation at the shifted bound water...

The production of flowering potted orchids has increased dramatically throughout the world in the past decade. For example, production value in the United States has increased 147% in the past six years, and in 2002 the estimated wholesale value was $105 million. Scheduling orchid species to flower on specific dates requires knowledge of how environmental parameters regulate plant development f...

Abiotic stress experienced by autumn-sown crops during winter is of great economic importance as it can have a severe negative impact on yield. In this study, we investigated the genetic architecture of winter hardiness and frost tolerance in triticale. To this end, we used a large mapping population of 647 DH lines phenotyped for both traits in combination with genome-wide marker data. Employi...

Heterogeneous ice nuclei are necessary, and the common epiphytic ice nucleation active (INA) bacteria Pseudomonas syringae van Hall and Erwinia herbicola (Löhnis) Dye are sufficient to incite frost injury to sensitive plants at -5 degrees C. The ice nucleation activity of the bacteria occurs at the same temperatures at which frost injury to sensitive plants occurs in nature. Bacterial ice nucle...

In this paper we report on changes in DNA methylation pattern in rape apices and leaves during transition from vegetative to reproductive stage due to grafting and/or vernalization. Grafted plants of winter rape (Brassica napus L., var. "Górczański") (stock from vernalized, scion from non-vernalized plants) were used together with vernalized non-grafted plants. In addition, methylation status w...

At a certain stage in their life-cycle plants flower, that is they undergo the transition from vegetative to reproductive development. The correct timing of this transition is crucial for reproductive success, so the plant integrates multiple environmental and endogenous signals to judge when to flower. The Dean laboratory is studying the importance of prolonged cold for flowering, a process kn...