Food security is a growing risk with the exponentially increasing population. Current methods of increasing crop output are causing serious damage to valuable habitats. One potential solution to this problem is to increase the yield of crops. Arabidopsis thaliana, the model organism for plants,is a member of the Brassicaceae family of plants; this is an economically important group of plants as it contains many crop plants, such as the cabbage. Using a molecular biology approach, I investigated the potential of using a genetic mutantresistant to a plant growth factor (BZR1-1D)as an alternative to the wildtype (Col-0), the type which appears most commonly in nature, of A.thalianato produce more seeds as a way of increasing yield. This has been done by growing wildtype and BZR1-1D mutant lines and harvesting the siliques (fruiting bodies which contain the seeds). I measured the length of the silique and counted the number of seeds in each and found that themutant (BZR1) has a higher aver
Boliver-Brown, Alexandra
Supervisors: Runions, J
Faculty of Health and Life Sciences
Year: 2016
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