Agave REVEILLE1 regulates the onset and release of seasonal dormancy in Populus

Deciduous woody plants like poplar (Populus spp.) have seasonal bud dormancy. It has been challenging to simultaneously delay the onset of bud dormancy in the fall and advance bud break in the spring, as bud dormancy, and bud break were thought to be controlled by different genetic factors. Here, we demonstrate that heterologous expression of the REVEILLE1 gene (named AaRVE1) from Agave (Agave americana) not only delays the onset of bud dormancy but also accelerates bud break in poplar in field trials. AaRVE1 heterologous expression increases poplar biomass yield by 166% in the greenhouse. Furthermore, we reveal that heterologous expression of AaRVE1 increases cytokinin contents, represses multiple dormancy-related genes, and up-regulates bud break-related genes, and that AaRVE1 functions as a transcriptional repressor and regulates the activity of the DORMANCY-ASSOCIATED PROTEIN 1 (DRM1) promoter. Our findings demonstrate that AaRVE1 appears to function as a regulator of bud dormancy and bud break, which has important implications for extending the growing season of deciduous trees in frost-free temperate and subtropical regions to increase crop yield

Comparison of charged particle identification using pulse shape discrimination and ΔE−E methods between front and rear side injection in silicon detectors

The response of silicon-silicon-CsI(Tl) telescopes, developed within the FAZIA collaboration, to fragments produced in nuclear reactions 84Kr+120-124Sn at 35 A MeV, has been used to study ion identification methods. Two techniques are considered for the identification of the nuclear products in the silicon stages. The standard ΔE−E one requires signals induced in two detection layers by ions punching through the first one. Conversely, the digital Pulse Shape Analysis (PSA) allows the identification of ions stopped in the first silicon layer. The capabilities of these two identification methods have been compared for different mountings of the silicons, i.e. rear (particles entering through the low electric field side) or front (particles entering through the high electric field side) side injection. The ΔE−E identification method gives exactly the same results in both configurations. At variance, the pulse shape discrimination is very sensitive to the detector mounting. In case of rear side injection, the identification with the "energy vs. charge rise time" PSA method presents energy thresholds which are significantly lower than in the case of front side injection