Functional Genomics Approach for Studying Flowering Time

Rice is a model crop plant that flowers after a lengthy vegetative growth. Most rice varieties flowers when the day length is shorter than 13 hours. Using reverse genetic approaches, we searched for the genes that are involved in controlling flowering time in japonica rice. This resulted in identification of several flowering time genes. Among them some are functional only under short day and others are more preferentially functional under long day. In addition, a set of genes transmit the red light signal generated from phytochromes. I will also present our preliminary data on the putative regulatory gene that makes Kitaake to flowers early.