Section 1 questions (25%)

1. What cell type in plants can be compared to animal stem cells? What is the location of these cells in monocots vs. dicots?

2. How do perennial plants survive harsh seasonal conditions every year? Discuss the factors involved in onset and release of dormancy.

3. What factor is vital for flowering in alternate bearing plants? What can you do to make these plants bear annually?

4. Design an experiment to classify an unknown plant sample as short day, long day or day neutral plant.

5. Define a genome, transcriptome and a proteome. How can the study of these help in advancing current horticultural practices?

6. Interplay of which two hormones regulates seed dormancy. Describe two major types of dormancy. How can you break seed coat based vs. deep dormancy?

7. Design an experiment to find the concentration of auxin that will stimulate the growth of a particular organ in a given plant. Will this concentration be applicable to a different plant species?

8. Name four different pathways responsible for flowering as studied in Arabidopsis. In the vernalization pathway, levels of which protein must be reduced for flowering.

9. What is the difference between sigmoid and double sigmoid fruit development growth curves?

Questions specific to section 2 (25%)

10.  Explain how the sunlight spectrum shifts under a canopy. How explain how plants detect the shift and three alterations of body plan to accommodate the difference.

11.  In a practical horticultural context, what physical properties of water are used to heat and cool plants or plant environments?

12.  Acclimation to cold is accompanied by several physical and chemical changes.  What are they?

13.  How do plant cells resist ice nucleation?

14.  Explain the difference between thermoperiod and DIF. 

Section 3 Questions (50%)

15.  Design an experiment to test regulated deficit irrigation and root zone dehydration as a watering regime.  What are the controls and what is the expected outcome based on class models?

16.  Roots, shoots and fruits have different sensitivities to water deficit.  Rank them in order of sensitivity and explain why that ranking makes sense. There may be more than one right answer, so be sure to justify your thoughts.

17. Explain osmoregulation.  What are some solutes that are repartitioned or generated to maintain turgor?

18.   Explain why "water deficit" stress is more correct than "drought".

19.   Explain the concept of "cross-hardening" and the "stress matrix".   Why does it work?

16.   Why are pyruvate decarboxylase and alcohol dehydrogenase mutants more sensitive to damage during flooding?  Explain.

20.  What are some of the symptoms of hypoxic stress?  How do they relate to plant hormones?  How do they allow tolerance or avoidance of unfavorable conditions?

21. Design an experiment to distinguish the effect of light vs. gravity on plant growth

22.  How can study of gravitropic mutants help horticulture?