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...

FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) encodes a systemic signal communicating the perception of long day photoperiod from leaves to the shoot apex to induce the floral transition. Transient expression of FT in the phloem companion cells of rosette leaves for one to several days was previously shown to be sufficient to commit plants to flowering. Here we show that partial commitment results in pleiotropic infl...

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...

Plants are more sensitive to light in the day than at night due to the circadian clock. The protein that acts downstream from the clock to modulate blue light signalling in stomata comes as a surprise; it is FT, which is thought to be the long-distance regulator of flowering.

DNA methylation plays an essential role in regulating plant development. Here, we described an early flowering trifoliate orange (precocious trifoliate orange, Poncirus trifoliata L. Raf) was treated with 5-azacytidine and displayed a number of phenotypic and developmental abnormalities. These observations suggested that DNA methylation might play an important role in regulating many developmen...

Key flowering genes, FD and FD PARALOGUE (FDP) encoding bZIP transcription factors that interact with a FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) in Arabidopsis were ectopically expressed in rice since we found AtFD and AtFDP also interact with HEADING DATE 3a (Hd3a) and RICE FLOWERING LOCUS T 1 (RFT1). Transgenic rice plants overexpressing AtFD and AtFDP caused reduction in plant height and spikelet size with de...

Extending the period of fruit production is a way to substantially increase crop yield in many fruit or ornamental species. In the cultivated octoploid strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa), the most consumed small fruit worldwide, fruit production season can be extended by selecting the perpetual flowering (PF) cultivars. This trait is of considerable interest to growers and to the food industry. F...

Multiple factors, including the MADS-domain proteins AGAMOUS-LIKE15 (AGL15) and AGL18, contribute to the regulation of the transition from vegetative to reproductive growth. AGL15 and AGL18 were previously shown to act redundantly as floral repressors and upstream of FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). A series of genetic and molecular experiments, primarily focused on...

In climates that experience short growing seasons due to drought, heat, or end-of-season frost, early flowering is a highly desirable trait for chickpea (Cicer arietinum). In this study, we mapped, sequenced, and characterized Early flowering3 (Efl3), an ortholog of Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) EARLY FLOWERING3 (ELF3) that confers early flowering in chickpea. In a recombinant inbred line ...