ethylene: List of plant responses

.

Anyone use this stuff? Seems like it could be useful for plants that won't ripen, among other things.

.

List of plant responses to ethylene

• Seedling triple response, thickening and shortening of hypocotyl with pronounced apical hook. This is thought to be a seedling's reaction to an obstacle in the soil such a stone, allowing it to push past the obstruction.
• In pollination, when the pollen reaches the stigma, the precursor of the ethylene, ACC, is secreted to the petal, the ACC releases ethylene with ACC oxidase.
• Stimulates leaf and flower senescence
• Stimulates senescence of mature xylem cells in preparation for plant use
• Inhibits shoot growth except in some habitually flooded plants like rice
• Induces leaf abscission
• Induces seed germination
• Induces root hair growth – increasing the efficiency of water and mineral absorption
• Induces the growth of adventitious roots during flooding
• Stimulates epinasty – leaf petiole grows out, leaf hangs down and curls into itself
• Stimulates fruit ripening
• Induces a climacteric rise in respiration in some fruit which causes a release of additional ethylene. This can be the one bad apple in a barrel spoiling the rest phenomenon.
• Affects neighboring individuals
• Disease/wounding resistance
• Inhibits stem growth outside of seedling stage
• Stimulates stem and cell broadening and lateral branch growth also outside of seedling stage
• Synthesis is stimulated by auxin and maybe cytokinin as well
• Ethylene levels are decreased by light
• The flooding of roots stimulates the production of ACC which travels through the xylem to the stem and leaves where it is converted to the gas
• Interference with auxin transport (with high auxin concentrations)
• Inhibits stomatal closing except in some water plants or habitually flooded ones such as some rice varieties, where the opposite occurs (conserving CO2 and O2)
• Where ethylene induces stomatal closing, it also induces stem elongation
• Induces flowering in pineapples

.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethylene#Ethylene_as_a_plant_hormone

.