Role of the Leaf in Flowering of Late Pea Varieties

Abstract

LATE (Sn Sn) pea varieties respond to long days and vernalization by flowering at a lower node¹. Paton² suggested that the product of leaf area and photoperiod governs the first node at which flowering occurs. If this is so, defoliation treatments should have an effect on the node of first flower (F). I have conducted several experiments to test this hypothesis. In general, the only conclusion to be drawn from the results (those for a typical experiment are shown in Table 1) is that leaves apparently have little effect on flowering.