botanists discover flowering signal

Now we just need to figure out how to falsify the FT gene's signal to trigger marijuana to flower and continue in flowering under 24 hours light...

exactly probs still stick with 18/6 though. down time is good time

morp said:

Botanists discover the signal that triggers flowering - life - 20 April 2007 - New Scientist

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Interesting article morp, thanks for posting it.

We already know what triggers flowering in Cannabis - it's the photoperiod change, I think the FT they're talking about applies to plants that do not respond to the photoperiod change.

So in that sense it doesn't really help us too much as we can already control very precisely flowering in Cannabis which makes it cultivation indoors so easy.

Actually, the article states that the protein IS found in photo-period responsive plants, meaning that by artificially manipulating the gene or introducing the protein it may be posable to force plants into flower regardless of photo-period... that would mean some major changes in how we grow and help farmers all over the world! Great article!

northerntights said:

Actually, the article states that the protein IS found in photo-period responsive plants, meaning that by artificially manipulating the gene or introducing the protein it may be posable to force plants into flower regardless of photo-period... that would mean some major changes in how we grow and help farmers all over the world! Great article!

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Well, I've read the article twice now and no-where have I see anything mentioned about this protein being found in plants that are photo-period sensitive.

Could you simply copy and paste the part that refers to this because I can't see it for some reason?

"Finding the same florigen in two such distantly related species suggests the mechanism is common to all plants"

That doesn't confirm that it applies to photo-period responsive plants, it merely 'suggests' that it might.

"In recent years, several studies have shown that FT is turned on in leaf tissue at particular day lengths, and that the FT protein acts in the shoot tip to trigger flowering."

And that doesn't confirm it either - it says that the protein is responsive to photo-period changes - that probably applies to ALL non-photoperiod change plants as their mechanism for triggering flowering.

We already know that Cannabis is photo-period sensitive, and that's controlled by the Phyotochrome pigments Pr and Pfr - where does Florigen come into it?

Some rice is photoperiod sensitive, it doesn't say if the one studied in the article was though.

Onto this marker-enriched plant, the team grafted a mutant stem that lacked the FT gene and so was unable to flower by itself. They observed that the fluorescent FT protein crossed into the mutant stem and triggered flowering. "It's pretty unambiguous," says Turnbull.

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So the florigen is mobile in the plant and moves to the leaves through the stems and the plants they studied can't go into flowering without it although it remains to be seen whether all plants have a florigen gene like these plants did that can be modified or what other mechanisms plants have that trigger flowering. So if the light change to 12/12 for marijuana triggers some identifiable florigen then there might be a way to flower with 24 hours of light or 18 hours of light which would hopefully mean higher yields and potency.

You're right though, a lot of the article is hype.