Inflorescence Initiation in Lolium temulentum L. XIV. The Role of Phytochrome in Long Day Induction

Abstract

Plants of L. temulentum grown in short days were exposed at various times during one night to mixtures of red (R) and far red (FR) light or to prolonged irradiation on a spectrograph.

Irradiation with red light through the latter half of the 16-h night was inductive of flowering, its effect being enhanced by exposure to FR during the first 6 h after the period in daylight. Brief exposure to FR during this initial period was as effective as continuous irradiation with FR, and its effect was reversible by brief subsequent exposure to R, implicating the pigment phytochrome.

Brief exposures to mixtures of R + FR at various times during the first 6 h in darkness were used to chart apparent changes in the two forms of phytochrome. To judge from the R + FR mixtures giving null responses, phytochrome reverted from the P_fr to the P_r form progressively over the first 5 h of darkness. There was no evidence of inverse reversion after an initial exposure to FR. Optimum flowering response required most of the phytochrome to be present in the P_fr form in the initial hours after daylight, followed by a rise in the proportion of the P_fr form to that set by R.

Reflecting this shift during the night in the optimum proportion of P_fr, the spectrograph experiments indicated peak effectiveness in the far red region of the spectrum for irradiation at the end of the period in daylight, and in the red region (~670 nm) for irradiation during the latter part of the night.

Flower induction in this long day plant is optimal when phytochrome is mostly in the P_r form early in the night, and in the P_fr form later, a sequence opposite to that required by short day plants such as Pharbitis nil and Chenopodium rubrum.