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Fig. 2 Harvest index in
wheat (relationship between
grain yield and dry matter)
grown in greenhouse and
sprayed with different
concentrations of SA (10, 1.0
and 0.01 uM)
1.0µM
0.001µM
0.01µM
Control
Dry matter
Gloxinia, Violet and Tagetes erecta (Larqué-Saavedra and Martín-Mex
2007
;
Sandoval-Yepiz
2004
).
Ore recently, in other series of experiments with wheat, Hernández-Cervantes
(unpublished data) demonstrated that the harvest index increased by 32 % in
comparison with the control, as an effect of the application of 1.0 lM of salicylic
acid (Fig.
2
). The same effect of biomass increase by SA was reported for chry-
santhemum and tomato, as shown in Table
1
and Fig.
3
.
(d) Positive Effect of Salicylic Acid on Flowering
The fourth observation is in relation to the impact of salicylic acid on flowering
in ornamental plants: In
1974
, studies by Cleland and Ajami demonstrated that
application of SA induced flowering in Lemna gibba, and indicated that it
substituted photoperiodic requirements. Since then, numerous experiments have
been conducted demonstrating the effect of SA on plants such as Arabidopsis.
Since the beginning of the year 2000, our group has demonstrated that, in orna-
mental plants developed in pots, such as Violet (Saintpaulia Ionantha Wendl.)
(Martin-Mex et al.
2005
) Chrysanthemum morifolium (Villanueva-Couoh et al.
2009
) Petunia (Martín-Mex et al.
2010
) and Gloxinia (Sinningia speciosa Benth.)
(unpublished data). SA induced these species to produce significantly more flowers
per plant. (Table
2
, Figs.
4
and
5
)
The economic impact of these results on commercial floriculture could be quite
significant.
These four categories of effects reported for SA, resulting from continuous
assays carried out at all levels; laboratory, greenhouse and field, motivated the
proposal to test SA for increasing the productivity of food species that are of
particular importance to humans, such as horticultural products and cereals.
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