The regulation of flower opening in lilies and how to control it to improve post-harvest quality
Lead Research Organisation:
Cardiff University
Department Name: School of Biosciences
Abstract
How do lily flowers open? This is the central question that this project addresses.
Flower opening is a key developmental stage and we know that it is regulated through responses to light, nutrients and water, but the precise mechanism varies amongst different species. Lilies are an important ornamental flower in which bud opening is a particular problem. Flowers are harvested as buds to allow for transport time, but premature opening or failure to open makes the product unsaleable. This leads to a waste of resources as cut flowers have a very short shelf-life, and there is substantial waste in the supply chain.
Understanding mechanisms regulating flower opening in different species also has implications for understanding evolutionary developmental biology and pollination ecology. Recent developments in high throughput sequencing have made it possible to analyse the genes that are involved in regulating processes such as flower opening even in non-model species such as lily for which there is no genome sequence information.
Flower opening is a key developmental stage and we know that it is regulated through responses to light, nutrients and water, but the precise mechanism varies amongst different species. Lilies are an important ornamental flower in which bud opening is a particular problem. Flowers are harvested as buds to allow for transport time, but premature opening or failure to open makes the product unsaleable. This leads to a waste of resources as cut flowers have a very short shelf-life, and there is substantial waste in the supply chain.
Understanding mechanisms regulating flower opening in different species also has implications for understanding evolutionary developmental biology and pollination ecology. Recent developments in high throughput sequencing have made it possible to analyse the genes that are involved in regulating processes such as flower opening even in non-model species such as lily for which there is no genome sequence information.
