GARDENERS and farmers have always been at the mercy of the seasons when it
comes to the timing of flowering. But thanks to a gene called FRIGIDA,
they may soon be able to make plants flower whenever they want.
Keri Torney of the John Innes Centre in Norwich has been studying how cold
controls the flowering of Arabidopsis, the weed that takes the role of
lab rat in plant genetics. Torney wanted to know why Arabidopsis
growing in the temperate climate of Dijon in France flowers much earlier than
Arabidopsis growing in Stockholm, which has a much harsher winter.
Torney’s…
