Japanese scientists have discovered a way to make morning glory bouquets last for much longer.
A team of researchers at the National Agriculture and Food Research Organisation in Japan have discovered a gene dubbed EPHEMERAL1 that is responsible for the short shelf-life ofmorning glory.
Morning glory is the common name given to more than 1,000 varieties of flowers that bloom in the early morning and start losing their petals at night. But when the scientists modified the newly discovered gene, the lifespan of the flowers almost doubled.
“Unmodified flowers started withering 13 hours after they opened, but flowers that had been genetically modified stayed open for 24 hours,” explained lead researcher of the study, biologist Kenichi Shibuya, to AAP.
The gene is linked to petal ageing and it could be used to develop new methods to extend the life of cut flowers.
Nowadays florists use chemicals to extend the shelf-life of flowers such as carnations, but the chemical, which inhibits a plant hormone known as ethylene, sometimes ripens the blooms, explains SBS. But ethylene is not present in other flowers, such as lilies, tulips and irises.
“It would be unrealistic to modify genes of all kinds of flowers, but we can look for other ways to suppress the (target) gene... such as making cut flowers absorb a solution that prevents the gene from becoming active,” Shibuya says.
The researchers believe that similar genes could be modified in other plant species to slow down their ageing process and guarantee flower bouquets last longer.
No comments:
Post a Comment