Submitted by vindya on Thu, 07/10/2014 - 14:33
International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Chinese Agricultural Academy of Sciences (CAAS) and Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI) have come together to sequence the genomes of 3000 rice accessions. A report of this unprecedented sequencing effort and access to the sequence information was recently published in the Journal GigaScience (Jia-Yang Li, Jun Wang, and Robert S Zeigler GigaScience May 2014, 3:8).
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Urban rice fields: effective land use under high tension lines in suburban Colombo (photo credit: Aravinda Perera)
Submitted by vindya on Fri, 06/13/2014 - 15:03
Strigolactones are a class of carotenoid derived compounds. As the most recently described class of plant hormones they are reported to play an ever expanding role in plant development. As a plant hormone, they act like signaling molecules which communicate with other plant hormone systems including auxins, cytokininins and ABA. Equally significant is their role in promoting symbiotic relationships between plants and soil microbes, a key aspect of plant’s mineral nutrition. Interestingly, name “Strigolactone” is derived from this latter role.
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Striga (witchweed) parasitizing a maize plant. Source: http://www.parasiticplants.siu.edu/Orobanchaceae/images/Striga.asia2.JPEG
Submitted by vindya on Fri, 03/14/2014 - 15:47
22nd Plant and Animal Genome conference was held from Jan 11 to 16 2014, in San Diego CA.
Submitted by vindya on Thu, 01/30/2014 - 19:59
ABA regulates a variety of divergent processes in plants from seed development and prevention of viviparity to plants’ response to osmotic stress. The latter is the best known of all the functions attributed to ABA, where ABA causes stomatal closure to reduce transpirational water loss. Since ABA is essential for mediating plants’ response to drought stress, which is crucial for growth and survival under limited water, ABA would have played a pivotal evolutionary role in plants’ ability to colonize land.
