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| Food crops discovery |
| Written by Business Weekly | |
| Thursday, 18 January 2007 | |
|
Scientists at the John Innes Centre in Norwich have made a discovery that could help breed food crops that adapt to the potentially devastating unpredictability of seasons gripped by climate change.
The researchers have been examining how plants use the cold of winter to time their flowering for the relative warmth of spring, a process called vernalisation. This varies even within the same plant species, depending on local climate. The discovery reveals how a species has developed different responses to different climates in a short period of time. In Scandinavia, where winter temperatures can vary widely, the model plant, Arabidopsis, has a slow vernalisation response to prevent plants from being 'fooled' into flowering by a short mid-winter thaw. One gene, named FLC, delays flowering over the winter and the research team found how cold turns off FLC and what keeps it off during growth in spring. |
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