Flowering of Woody Bamboo in Tissue Culture Systems

Abstract

Flowering and subsequent seed set are not only normal activities in the life of most plants, but constitute the very reason for their existence. Woody bamboos can take a long time to flower, even over 100 years. This makes it difficult to breed bamboo, since flowering time cannot be predicted and passing through each generation takes too long. Another unique characteristic of woody bamboo is that a bamboo stand will often flower synchronously, both disrupting the supply chain within the bamboo industry and affecting local ecology. Therefore, an understanding of the mechanism that initiates bamboo flowering is important not only for biology research, but also for the bamboo industry. Induction of flowering in vitro is an effective way to both shorten the flowering period and control the flowering time, and has been shown for several species of bamboo. The use of controlled tissue culture systems allows investigation into the mechanism of bamboo flowering and facilitates selective breeding. Here, after a brief introduction of flowering in bamboo, we review the research on in vitro flowering of bamboo, including our current understanding of the effects of plant growth regulators and medium components on flower induction and how in vitro bamboo flowers can be used in research.

Identification, characterization and gene expression analyses of important flowering genes related to photoperiodic pathway in bamboo

“…The possible alternatives, such as use of annual flowering bamboo (e.g., Indocalamus wightianus, Ochlandra sp .) or use of in vitro induced flowering tissues [ 37 ] are not credible since they either lack the extended vegetative phase or the plants are grown under artificial conditions and therefore regulation of the genes might be different. Consequently, apart from a few exceptions [ 20 ], the majority of studies have relied on field-grown flowering plants, undertook de novo transcriptome sequencing of floral tissues and annotated short ESTs based on BLAST based sequence homology [ 20 – 27 ].…”

Development and Deployment of High-Throughput Retrotransposon-Based Markers Reveal Genetic Diversity and Population Structure of Asian Bamboo

“…Although the proliferation of bamboo occurs predominantly through rhizomes, most bamboos do reproduce through seeds, flowering at least once in a lifetime. Usually, flowering intervals are long and vary between species, ranging from several to hundreds of years [2][3][4]. More than 1642 bamboo species from 75 genera are known (https://www.inbar.int), among which 100 species are commercially cultivated over 30 million hectares worldwide, particularly in Asia.…”

De novo sequencing of the transcriptome reveals regulators of the floral transition in Fargesia macclureana (Poaceae)

“…Sporadic flowering involves flowering in only a few isolated clumps, which set little or no seed and usually remain alive afterward [13]. In contrast, gregarious flowering involves all individuals of a species regardless of age and/or location within and among the populations at the same time, which is usually followed by death and seed setting [14].…”