Roles of Flowering Locus T{F7) and Terminal Flower 1 (TFLi) in flowering of mango

摘要

Most mango cultivars are affected by the problem of alternate bearing, but some do not exhibit this behavior. There are tools to manage flowering in mango by pruning, nutritional management and the use of growth regulators, but there is very limited information on molecular (gene) control of flowering in mango. Paclobutrazol (PBZ), an inhibitor of GA biosynthesis, is used to ensure profuse and early flowering in mango. However, information is still not available on how PBZ affects the important flowering inducing and flowering suppressing genes of the phosphatidylethanolamine-binding protein (PEBP) family. We studied expression of mango Flowering Locus T [MiFT) and Terminal Flower 1 (MiTFLl) genes in cultivars 'Alphonso' (alternate bearing) and 'Ratna' (regular bearing) with treatment of PBZ to ensure flowering in treated plants and gibberellic acid (GA) to ensure no flowering in treated plants. All the plants treated with PBZ flowered, while none of the plants treated with GA flowered. Expressionof both MiFTl and MiFT3 was much higher in PBZ-treated plants compared with GA-treated plants in both cultivars, consistent with a role in floral induction. Of the two TFL1 genes analyzed, MiTFLla appears to be associated with suppression of flowering.