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Fruiting is a developmental process that starts after fertilization, and modifies flower organs, mostly the ovary and surrounding tissues, to create a new slowly maturing structure called a fruit. It is generally energy-rich and will help disperse and protect the embryo-containing seed, and nourish it during germination.
This study reports that in European beech masting, the summer solstice serves as a celestial trigger that enables cohesive timekeeping across distant beech populations, allowing seed production to be synchronized at a subcontinental scale.
In flowering plants, fertilization triggers auxin synthesis in the endosperm to promote seed and fruit development. Here the authors show that an MADS-box transcription factor AGL62 is required to activate auxin synthesis in the endosperms of Fragaria vesca, a diploid strawberry, and Arabidopsis.
Fruit ripening is a fine-tuned process involving wholesale changes to both the structure and metabolism of the fruit. Now, the CHLORAD proteolytic pathway is shown to regulate chromoplast development, thus altering the ripening process of tomato fruits.
Analysis of fruit development in Arabidopsis reveals how a four-component regulatory module, comprising a microRNA and three types of transcription factors, functions to control fruit size.
