Plant science

4 cards. Each one is a 40-second story with a five-minute read behind it.

1. Why grafting is the secret to combining plant hardiness with superior fruit productionGrafting allows you to merge two plants into one, pairing a resilient root system with a high-performing fruit variety. This Gardening Australia segment explains how this techniqu…
2. A ripe banana really can ripen the fruit beside it. The culprit is a gas.Ripening fruit gives off ethylene, the simplest of plant hormones and the first gas known to act as one. Traces of it trigger ripening in neighbouring fruit, open flowers and drop…
3. 'Short-day' plants are misnamed. What they actually measure is the night.Many plants flower only when the season is right, and they judge it by light. Scientists first thought day length was the trigger. It turned out to be the length of unbroken darkn…
4. Some plants won't flower until they've remembered a winter.Winter wheat, many biennials and fruit trees need weeks of cold before they can bloom. Plants measure it with a molecular memory: prolonged chill gradually switches off a gene tha…

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