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`With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, thousands of flowers will be bought and given to loved ones everywhere. Unfortunately, that beautiful bouquet of flowers won’t last very long. When cut, flowers only last a week or so in water, but some flowers only last mere days once they bloom, such as flowers like the Iris and Tulip. This week’s Colloquium Series welcomed Dr. Yuan Zhong of the Biology Department as the guest speaker, who explained her work with the Iris flower.
Zhong spoke to an audience of more than 30 Wednesday afternoon about her goal of creating a longer flowering period in the Iris flower. Zhong explained that by doing this, the Iris flower will bloom longer than its current one to four day life span. Zhong’s study is founded upon examining the Iris’ Programmed Cell Death (PCD) senescence. PCD is also known as genetically programmed cellular suicide, which means the cells in the plant die at a very specific point in time. Senescence is simply the process of aging in plants. This is the process that creates the short life span of the flower. Zhong also uses the plant hormone Ethelyne, as well as different Ethelyne sensitive and insensitive plants, to aid in her study.
Zhong’s hopes are that this will lead to novel strategies for engineering the trait of longevity in plants and other eukaryotes. This study could also lead to a new approach to engineering of plant longevity in the future. This will ultimately benefit flower consumers, producers, and will increase the price of the crop. Zhong has been a professor at Millersville University for the last two years, working with students on her study, and using the resources Millersville University has to offer.
The future may hold longer life-spans for flowers and larger pockets for producers, but one thing will remain the same: The high prices of bouquets on Valentine’s Day.