Stressed Plants Say it with Flowers

In the race against time to develop new crop varieties that will ensure enough food and feed for the people, two studies by graduate students of University of Western Australia provided information about how some plants adapt to both drought and heat at the flowering stage. Both projects provide useful information for the breeding of drought and heat-resistant canola, which is part of the brassica family.

In a study by Ms. Yi Ming Guo with a research team at Justus Liebig University in Giessen, Germany, they found that some genotypes of Brassica tolerate drought better than others because they have the mechanisms to protect their reproductive organs against water deficit. They also discovered that measuring floral bud temperature was far less time-consuming and non-destructive than traditional ways of assessing drought stress in plants.

In another study by Annisa with her supervisors at the UWA Institute of Agriculture, the team found genetic variation for heat tolerance in Brassica rapa seed formation and seed yield. They discovered that a leafy vegetable type of Brassica rapa from Indonesia was the most tolerant of high temperatures during flowering, followed by an oilseed type from Pakistan.

See the news at  http://www.news.uwa.edu.au/201307305917/business-and-industry/stressed-plants-say-it-flowers