Question

Who discovered florigen?

Answer 1

Florigen (or flowering hormone) is a hormone-like molecule that is thought to control and/or trigger flowering in plants. Florigen is synthesized in the leaves and acts in the shoot apical meristem of buds and growing tips. It is graft-transmissible and functions across species.

Complete answer:
Mikhail Chailakhyan demonstrated in 1936 that graft transmission can induce flowering. He explained that it was caused by a plant hormone that promotes flowering. He gave it the name florigen. It is produced in the leaves and has an effect on buds and growing tips.

To understand Florigen, you must first understand how flowers work. For a plant to begin flowering, changes must be made to the shoot apical meristem (SAM). However, there are some factors that the plant must consider before beginning this process, such as the environment, but more specifically, light.

"The evolution of both internal and external control systems enables plants to precisely regulate flowering so that it occurs at the optimal time for reproductive success," according to the study. Photoperiodism is used by the plant to determine this optimal time between day and night.

Although it was once thought that the accumulation of photosynthetic products controlled plant flowering, two men named Wightman Garner and Henry Allard demonstrated that this was not the case. They discovered that it was the length of the day, rather than the accumulation of the products within the plants, that affected the plants' flowering abilities.

Thus, florigen is discovered by Mikhail Chailakhyan.

Note: Florigen is controlled by the activity of an anti florigen. Anti Florigens are hormones that work to counteract the function of florigen and are encoded by the same genes. TFL1 is the antiflorigen in Arabidopsis, and SELF PRUNING is the anti florigen in tomato (SP).