Keeping time: biological clocks in plants

Fri Oct 21 2016 13:00:00 GMT+1300 (New Zealand Daylight Time)

Keeping time: biological clocks in plants

21 October 2016

One of the biggest challenges facing the human race is to feed a world population predicted to rise to nine billion by 2050.

Increasing the yield of food crops that millions of people rely on is therefore a major focus for scientists as they use new tools and technologies such as biotechnology to manipulate the plant life cycle.

In this free public lecture at the University of Auckland, Professor Jo Putterill from the School of Biological Sciences will describe how seasonal signals are interpreted by different plants and relayed to their growing tips and provide examples of how this knowledge is applied.

“Agricultural yields have improved hugely over the last 100 years, but there are two major pressures that we have now that we didn’t have before and that is the increasing population pressure on productive land and climate change,” she says.

Professor Putterill is a molecular biologist studying plant genomes and biological processes in order to understand the internal clock that regulates flowering, food and seed production.

The mechanism of the internal clock was uncovered over the past 20 years and has led to the further discovery of a universal hormone that promotes flowering in plants. Plant breeders are now focusing on genome sequencing and use of modern plant breeding tools for robust flowering and productivity in crops.

“For example, legumes are the second most important group of crop plants after cereals, with much of the world’s population dependent on them,” she says, “so work in plant biology is very much focused on optimising sexual reproduction in the crops we depend on.”

Another focus for biologists is to prolong the ‘green’ phase of plants by delaying flowering in order to maximise material for biofuels.

This free public lecture will be held in lecture theatre OGGB3 of the University of Auckland Business School, 12 Grafton Rd, on Tuesday, 25 October at 5-6pm.

Light refreshments will be served after the lecture in the adjacent foyer.

For more information

Anne Beston
Media Relations Adviser,
Communications,
University of Auckland.

Tel: +64 9 923 3258
Mobile: + 64 (0) 21 970 089
Email: a.beston@auckland.ac.nz