Abscisic Acid Analysis in Vitis vinifera in the Period of Endogenous Bud Dormancy by High Pressure Liquid Chromatography

In buds and nodes of Vitis vinifera L. cv. Riesling, the content of abscisic acid (ABA) was measured by high pressure liquid chromatography and related to bud dormancy. In the period of endogenous bud dormancy (rate of bud break is low or zero under favourable climatic conditions) the ABA content increased twelvefold. This indicates a causal relationship between endogenous bud dormancy and ABA.     

Variation in the Competence of Tobacco Pith Cells for Cytokinin-Habituation in Culture

Pith parenchyma tissues of tobacco sometimes lose their exogenous requirement for a cell division factor such as the cytokinin, kinetin. This process, known as cytokinin habituation, appears to involve epigenetic changes since it is a heritable change in cell phenotype which is directed, regularly reversible, and leaves the cell totipotent. In this report, we show that pith cells in culture consist of at least two types of cytokinin-requiring cells. The first type habituates rapidly under inductive conditions. The second type continues to express the cytokinin-requiring phenotype for many cell generations in culture but retains the capacity for habituation. These findings suggest that pith cells differ in their competence to habituate and that different states of competence are inherited by individual cells.