In a bid to fill orchards with plumper fruit and cane fields with denser stems, Brisbane, French and UK scientists have isolated a new plant gene which controls shoot growth.
One of the chief scientists, Dr Christine Beveridge at the University of Queensland, said the gene Ramosus1, which means many branches in Latin, regulated two unknown plant hormones which control branching.
Ramosus1 was discovered last year by the same team from the Australian Research Council Centre for Integrative Legume Research (CILR) at UQ, the Station de Genetique de Amelioration des Plants in France and The University of York in the UK.
But its job of regulating at least two new plant hormones was not known, until now.
“If we could use this new gene as a tool to discover new hormones, we could not only increase the number of plant hormones. . . we could also define new economical and natural methods of controlling branching in many plant species,” Dr Beveridge said.
With more research into hormone interaction, scientists could tweak plants to produce more or less shoots which would free up plant resources for sweeter cane or bigger fruit.
Dr Beveridge said nine plant hormones were previously known to exist, which controlled such factors as growth and cell division.
“It now appears that some as yet unknown hormones play critical roles in plant growth and development,” she said.
“Identifying these hormones is a crucial first step in improving our understanding of the molecular processes involved . . . and may provide significant benefits to many agricultural and horticultural industries.
“It’s not like you even have to transfer across species, you just go and find the similar gene in the new species and use that.”
She said Ramosus1 and its hormones were like a dimmer switch, which could turn shoot growth on and off if the plant was too dense or bare.
The researchers have experimented on a variety of garden pea which resembles a stick to make it easy to spot shoots.
Their research is featured in the online journal The Plant Cell and is attracting considerable interest from the sugar industry.
“It’s like stuff you think we should have learnt perhaps hundreds of years ago I suppose,” Dr Beveridge said.
Media: contact Dr Beveridge on (phone: 0410 648 830, 07 3365 7525, email: c.beveridge@uq.edu.au) or Miguel Holland at UQ Communications (phone: 3365 2619, email: m.holland@uq.edu.au)
