“Lazy” corn and gravitropism

Inspired by Linda’s post about thigmomorphogenesis, I decided today I would add the word gravitropism to your vocabulary. It simply means growth in response to gravity. Shoots of plants grow up, because they are negatively gravitropic, they grow against the pull of gravity, while roots are positively gravitropic and grow down towards the pull of gravity.

And why is that so important? Well… this is what happens when gravitropism is missing.

cornlazyplant

To the left is normal old corn. The plant to the right was not sat on by a raccoon or anything, it simply has a mutation in a gene called lazy plant1. I’m not kidding. That’s the official, scientific name for this gene. Geneticists have fun with their names, though fruit fly geneticists are for sure the kings of silly gene names. This gene got that name because, as you can see, without a functioning copy of that gene, the corn plant no longer can detect the pull of gravity and so flops down in a “lazy” manner.

This corn is just odd, of course, with no real value (though it was fun to grow) but similar mutations are what give us some of the “weeping” or trailing forms of popular ornamental trees and shrubs.

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Linda Chalker-Scott

Dr. Linda Chalker-Scott has a Ph.D. in Horticulture from Oregon State University and is an ISA certified arborist and an ASCA consulting arborist. She is WSU’s Extension Urban Horticulturist and a Professor in the Department of Horticulture, and holds two affiliate associate professor positions at University of Washington. She conducts research in applied plant and soil sciences, publishing the results in scientific articles and university Extension fact sheets. Linda also is the award-winning author of five books: the horticultural myth-busting The Informed Gardener (2008) and The Informed Gardener Blooms Again (2010) from the University of Washington Press and Sustainable Landscapes and Gardens: Good Science – Practical Application (2009) from GFG Publishing, Inc., and How Plants Work: The Science Behind the Amazing Things Plants Do from Timber Press (2015). Her latest effort is an update of Art Kruckeberg’s Gardening with Native Plants of the Pacific Northwest from UW Press (2019). In 2018 Linda was featured in a video series – The Science of Gardening – produced by The Great Courses. She also is one of the Garden Professors – a group of academic colleagues who educate and entertain through their blog and Facebook pages. Linda’s contribution to gardeners was recognized in 2017 by the Association for Garden Communicators as the first recipient of their Cynthia Westcott Scientific Writing Award. "The Garden Professors" Facebook page - www.facebook.com/TheGardenProfessors "The Garden Professors" Facebook group - www.facebook.com/groups/GardenProfessors Books: http://www.sustainablelandscapesandgardens.com

2 thoughts on ““Lazy” corn and gravitropism”

  1. Lazy genes are fascinating. I characterised a genetic lesion in the pea version of LAZY1, which resulted in a lazy prostrate phenotype

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