Poor lateral branching sometimes occurs when certain poinsettia (Euphorbia pulcherrima) cultivars are pinched. Two experiments were conducted to determine the effect of high temperatures on axillary bud development. In Expt. 1, `Red Sails' plants were grown in a high-temperature environment (HTE) of 27°C at night (8 hr) and 30°C (3 hr), 33°C (10 hr), and 30°C (3 hr) in the day for two months, then transferred to a 20°C environment. In Expt. 2, plants grown at 20°C were transferred into the same HTE described above for 0, 2, 4, 8, 16, or 32 days and were then moved back into the 20°C environment. Axillary buds were examined for viability at the end of each experiment. In Expt. 1, only 8% of the lateral buds forming in the HTE were viable, while 80% of the buds forming in leaf axils of leaves unfolding after the plants were transferred to the 20°C environment were viable. In Expt. 2, 80% of buds produced in axils of the first four leaves to unfold after the start of the experiment were viable in all the treatments. However, the percentage of viable buds in the axils of leaf numbers 5 to 8 was 100, 100, 100, 96, 56, and 0 for the plants placed in the HTE for 0, 2, 4, 8, 16, and 32 days, respectively. These data indicate day temperatures of 30 to 33°C adversely affect lateral shoot development of `Red Sails' poinsettia.
Florigen is involved in axillary bud development at multiple stages inArabidopsis
