Tassel Initiation is Synchronized to the Elongation Rates of Leaf Primordia in Zea mays
Keywords:
defoliation, flowering, growth, leaf elongation, maize, photoperiod, tassel initiationAbstract
Plants must coordinate the environmental conditions with internal cues in order to transition from vegetative to floral development at a time when reproductive success is likely. In this study, the association between primordial leaf growth and floral initiation in controlling that transition was examined. Maize plants grown under different photoperiod, light intensity and defoliation treatments were dissected at frequent intervals to measure the growth of exposed and unexposed leaves and determine the developmental stage of apical meristem.
A gradual decrease in relative elongation rates of successive leaf primordia and unexposed young leaves was observed as plants increased in size from seedling emergence until tassel initiation. Earlier-formed leaf primordia elongated at a higher relative rate than did younger, latter-formed leaf primordia. More importantly, this gradual decrease in early stage leaf growth and the resultant accumulation of unexposed leaves in the whorl were found to be associated with floral transition. Immediately prior to tassel initiation, the length of corresponding leaf primordia in plants of the same or different treatments was similar. Treatments including photoperiod extension and defoliation that delayed tassel initiation, and shading that reduced growth were also marked by a syncronized modification of leaf primordia elongation. Floral transition occurred when the slow-down in leaf primordia elongation and the resultant accumulation of leaf primordia reached a certain level. The elongation rate of leaf primordia could regulate floral transition in maize.References
Bernier G, Kinet JM, Sachs RM. 1981. The physiology of flowering, Vol. I., Boca Raton, CRC Press.
Bernier G. 1988. The control of floral evocation and morphogenesis. Annual Review of Plant Physiology & Plant Molecular Biology, 39: 175-219.
Bodson M, Bernier G. 1985. Is flowering controlled by the assimilate level. Physiologie Végétale, 23: 491-501.
Brouwer R. 1962. Nutritive influences on the distribution of dry matter in the plant. Netherlands Journal of Agricultural Science, 10: 361-376.
Brouwer R. 1983. Functional equilibrium: sense or nonsense. Netherlands Journal of Agricultural Science, 31: 335-348.
Casey IA, Brereton AJ, Laidlaw AS, McGilloway DA. 1999. Effects of sheath tube length on leaf development in perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.). Annals of Applied Biology, 134: 251-257.
Chailakhjan MK. 1937. [Concerning the hormonal nature of plant development processes.] Competes Rendes (Doklady) Academy of Sciences USSR, 16: 227.
Colasanti J, Zhuang Y, Sundaresan V. 1998. The indeterminate gene encodes a zinc finger protein and regulates a leaf-generated signal required for the transition to flowering in maize. Cell, 93: 593-603.
Colasanti J, Sundaresan V. 2000. 'Florigen' enters the molecular age: long-distance signals that cause plants to flower. Trends in Biochemical Sciences, 25: 236-240.
Corbesier L, Bernier G, Perilleux C. 2002. C:N ratio increases in the phloem sap during floral transition of the long-day plants Sinapis alba and Arabidopsis thaliana. Plant & Cell Physiology, 43: 684-688.
Danilevskaya ON, Meng X, McGonigle B, Muszynski MG. 2011. Beyond flowering time. Pleitrophic function of maize flowering hormone florigen. Plant Signalling and Behaviour, 6(9): 1267-1270.
Deli-Agosti R, Greppin H. 1998. Systemic stress effect on the sugar metabolism under photoperiodic constraint. Archives des Sciences, 51: 337-346.
Dennis ES, Finnegan EJ, Bilodeau P, Chaudhury A, Genger R, Helliwell CA, Sheldon CC, Bagnall DJ, Peacock WJ. 1996. Vernalization and the initiation of flowering. Seminars in Cell & Developmental Biology, 7: 441-448.
Dewar RC. 1993. A root-shoot partitioning model based on carbon-nitrogen-water interactions and Munch phloem flow. Functional Ecology, 7: 356-368.
Evans MS, Barton MK. 1997. Genetics of angiosperm shoot apical meristem development. Annual Review of Plant Physiology and Plant Molecular Biology, 48: 673-701.
Frank AB, Bauer A. 1995. Phyllochron differences in wheat, barley, and forage grasses. Crop Science, 35: 19-23.
Gastal F, Belanger G, Lemaire, G. 1992. A model of the leaf extension rate of tall fescue in response to nitrogen and temperature. Annals of Botany, 70: 437-442.
Hay RKM, Ellis RP. 1998. The control of flowering in wheat and barley: what recent advances in molecular genetics can reveal. Annals of Botany, 82: 541-554.
Hopkinson JM, Ison RL. 1982. Investigations into ripeness to flower in tobacco. Field Crops Research, 5: 335-348.
Irish EE, Jegla D. 1997. Regulation of extent of vegetative development of the maize shoot meristem. The Plant Journal, 11: 63-71.
Irish EE. 1998. Additional vegetative growth in maize reflects expansion of fates in preexisting tissue, not additional divisions by apical initials. Developmental Biology, 197: 198-204.
Irish EE, Nelson TM, 1988. Development of maize plants from cultured shoot apices. Planta, 175: 9-12.
Irish EE, Nelson TM, 1991. Vegetative to floral converison occurs in multiple steps in maize tassel development. Development, 112: 891-898.
Ishioka N, Tanimoto S, Harada H. 1991. Roles of nitrogen and carbohydrate in floral-bud formation in Pharbitis apex cultures. Journal of Plant Physiology, 138: 573-576.
King RW, Gocal GFW. 1999. Reproduction. In: Atwell BJ, Kriedemann PE, Turnbull CGN eds. Plants in action: adaptation in nature, performance in cultivation. Australia, Macmillan Education.
Kirby EJM. 1990. Co-ordination of leaf emergence and leaf and spikelet primordium initiation in wheat. Field Crops Research, 25: 3-4.
Levy YY, Dean C. 1998. The transition to flowering. The Plant Cell, 10: 1973-1989.
MacAdam JW, Volenec JJ, Nelson CJ. 1989. Effects of nitrogen on mesophyll cell division and epidermal cell elongation in tall fescue leaf blades. Plant Physiology, 89: 549-556.
McIntyre GI. 1997. The role of nitrate in the osmotic and nutritional control of plant development. Australian Journal of Plant Physiology, 24: 103-118.
McSteen P, Laudencia-Chingcuanco D, Colasanti J. 2000. A floret by any other name: control of meristem identity in maize. Trends in Plant Science, 5: 61-66.
Mendez-Vigo B, de Andres MT, Ramiro M, Martinez-Zapater JM, Alonso-Blanco C. 2010. Temporal analysis of natural variation for the rate of leaf production and its relationship with flowering initiation in Arabidopsis thaliana. Journal of Experimental Botany, 61: 1611–1623.
Milyaeva EL, Komarova EN. 1996. Changes in the sugar content in stem apices of the short-day plant Perilla nankinensis at floral transition. Russian Journal of Plant Physiology, 43: 149-154.
Moncur MW. 1981. Floral initiation in field crops, Melbourne, CSIRO Publishing.
Ockerby SE, Midmore DJ, Yule DF, Foster SD. 2000. Integrating environmental and endogenous cues: does the slow growth of leaf primordia induce floral development in Sorghum bicolor. Flowering Newsletter, 30: 40-45.
Ockerby SE. 2001. Leaves shed light on flowering (Vegetative growth and the control of floral induction in Sorghum bicolor), PhD, Central Queensland University, Australia.
Ockerby SE, Midmore DJ, Yule DF. 2001. Timing and height of defoliation affect vegetative growth and floral development in grain sorghum. Australian Journal of Agricultural Research, 52: 801-808.
Ockerby SE, Midmore DJ, Yule DF, Foster SD. 2014. Leaf growth controls the timing of panicle initiation in Sorghum bicolor. Asian Journal of Agriculture and Food Science, 2: 28-38.
Orkwiszewski JAJ, Poethig RS. 2000. Phase identity of the maize leaf is determined after leaf initiation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 97: 10631-10636.
Poethig RS. 1990. Phase change and the regulation of shoot morphogenesis in plants. Science, 250: 923-930.
Raper CD Jr, Thomas JF, Tolley-Henry L, Rideout JW. 1988. Assessment of an apparent relationship between availability of soluble carbohydrates and reduced nitrogen during floral initiation in tobacco. Botanical Gazette, 149: 289-294.
Reeves PH, Coupland G. 2000. Response of plant development to environment: control of flowering by daylength and temperature. Current Opinion in Plant Biology, 3: 37-42.
Rideout JW, Raper CD Jr, Miner GS. 1992. Changes in ratio of soluble sugars and free amino nitrogen in the apical meristem during floral transition of tobacco. International Journal of Plant Sciences, 153: 78-88.
Sachs RM. 1977. Nutrient diversion: an hypothesis to explain the chemical control of flowering. Hortscience, 12: 220-222.
Sachs T. 1999. 'Node counting': an internal control of balanced vegetative and reproductive development. Plant, Cell and Environment, 22: 757-766.
Sharman KV, Sedgley M, Aspinall D. 1990 Disruption by temperature of floral evocation and cell-cycling in the shoot apical meristem of Helipterum roseum. Australian Journal of Plant Physiology, 17(6): 629-640.
Simmonds J. 1982. In vitro flowering on leaf explants of Streptocarpus nobilis: The influence of culture medium components on vegetative and reproductive development. Canadian Journal of Botany, 60: 1461-1468.
Tanaka O. 1986. Flower induction by nitrogen deficiency in Lemna paucicostata 6746. Plant & Cell Physiology, 27: 875-880.
Tanaka O, Asagami K. 1986. Ferricyanide induces flowering by suppression of nitrate assimilation in Lemna paucicostata 6746. Plant & Cell Physiology, 27: 1063-1068.
Thomas H. 1983. Analysis of the nitrogen responses of leaf extension in Lolium temulentum seedlings. Annals of Botany, 51: 363-371.
Thornley JHM. 1998. Modelling shoot:root relations: the only way forward? Annals of Botany, 81: 165-171.
Tooke F, Pouteau S, Battey N. 1998. Non-reversion of Impatiens in the absence of meristem commitment. Journal of Experimental Botany, 49: 1681-1688.
Turgeon R. 1989. The sink-source transition in leaves. Annual Review of Plant Physiology & Plant Molecular Biology, 40: 119-138.
Van Nocker S. 2001. The molecular biology of flowering. Horticultural Reviews, 27: 1-39.
Volec JJ, Nelson CJ. 1984. Carbohydrate metabolism in leaf meristems of tall fescue. II. Relationship to leaf elongation rates modified by nitrogen fertilization. Plant Physiology, 74: 595-600.
Wilson RE, Laidlaw AS. 1985. The role of the sheath tube in the development of expanding leaves in perennial ryegrass. Annals of Applied Biology, 106: 385-391.
Yamasaki A, Yoneyama T, Tanaka F, Tanaka K. 2000. Carbon and nitrogen status of flower-induced strawberry as revealed by 13C- and 15N-tracer studies. Acta Horticulturae, 514: 301-310.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
- Papers must be submitted on the understanding that they have not been published elsewhere (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture, review, or thesis) and are not currently under consideration by another journal published by any other publisher.
- It is also the authors responsibility to ensure that the articles emanating from a particular source are submitted with the necessary approval.
- The authors warrant that the paper is original and that he/she is the author of the paper, except for material that is clearly identified as to its original source, with permission notices from the copyright owners where required.
- The authors ensure that all the references carefully and they are accurate in the text as well as in the list of references (and vice versa).
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
- The journal/publisher is not responsible for subsequent uses of the work. It is the author's responsibility to bring an infringement action if so desired by the author.
