Plant genes hold key to improved growth

By Andrew Vowles, At Guelph

You might not be thinking about your garden just yet, but Emily Moeller is. How to make desired ornamental plants in less time is the topic of her master’s project in the Department of Plant Agriculture.

Using the tools of genetics and a longtime love of gardening, she aims to produce landscape plants that might use fewer nutrients and water or make more essential oils – all in less time than normal. That holds out possibilities for home gardeners and for growers supplying that market.

She’s relying on a trick practised by many plants called polyploidy. Unlike most animals, plants can still be coaxed to double their number of chromosomes – or even triple or quadruple them.

Biologists piggyback on a natural process in tinkering with chromosome numbers. Moeller says scientists think plants have undergone chromosome doubling many times during their evolution, using certain genes needed for survival and silencing or getting rid of others.

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