EXERCISE 3: APICAL DOMINANCE AND ABCISSION

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION

Apical dominance is a term used to describe the phenomenon where the shoot tip has control
over the growth of axillary buds (Cline, 1997).

This exercise aims to:

1. Discuss significance of apical dominance in various industries;

2. Identify the roles of hormones involved with abscission and;
3. Examine the influence of environmental factors in abscission; and
4. Perform activities that can elucidate the roles of auxin, cytokinin, and sugars in bud

inhibition and apical dominance

METHODOLOGY

In the first part of the exercise, we studied the concept of apical dominance on the chosen
herbaceous plant species. The chosen herbaceous plant for this exercise is Basil, Ocimum basilicum. Six
(6) pots of this plant were prepared, each one having four internodes. These plants were divided into 2
set ups, the first one was left untouched and served as the control group while the plants in second set
up were decapitated 1 cm from their apex. These two setups were observed for 14 days or 2 weeks and
were watered whenever necessary. Everyday their overall height, plant length, and axillary buds’ length.
were measured and recorded.

Set up 1: untouched Measure overall height, plant length, and

apex axillary buds’ length for 14 days
Six (6)
pots of
Basil Set up 2:
Measure overall height, plant length, and
decapitated 1 cm
axillary buds’ length for 14 days
apex

Figure 1. Workflow of Exercise 3 Part 1 Apical Dominance

In the second part of the exercise, we studied the concept of abscission on mung bean, Vigna
radiata, plants. Nine (9) 2-weeks-old mung bean plants were prepared and were then divided into 3 set
ups. The first set up were placed under full sun and was watered whenever necessary. This set up served
as the control group. The second set up was placed in the dark and was also watered when necessary.
The third set up was placed under full sun, however, was not watered for the whole duration to induce
drought. These set ups were observed for 1 week or 7 days and colors, overall shape and size of the
leaves were recorded.
 Set up 1: Full sun, watered when Observed and recorded the colors, overall
necessary (Control) shape, and size of the leaves for 1 week.

Nine (9) 2-
weeks-old Set up 2: dark, watered when Observed and recorded the colors, overall
mung bean necessary shape, and size of the leaves for 1 week.
plants
Observed and recorded the colors, overall
Set up 3: Full sun, not watered
shape, and size of the leaves for 1 week.

Figure 2. Workflow of Exercise 3 Part 2 Abscission

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

For the first part of the exercise, the recorded parameters of Ocimum basilicum’s response to
apex decapitation is summarized in Table 1. To show its trend, the parameters were plotted against the
number of days in a line graph in Figure 1. For plant height, there’s no significant difference in height
changes between the control set up and the decapitated set up. But in the case of axillary bud length,
the changes of bud length in set up 2 is significantly higher than that of Set up 1. Images also shows the
difference of axillary bud growth in two set ups as shown in Figure 4. Initially, the axillary buds in both
setups are still tiny but after 2 weeks, the axillary buds in set up 2 are clearly bigger than those in Setup
1.

As mentioned previously, apical dominance is correlated to Auxin concentration and mechanism

action. The shoot tips/apex is the site of auxin production in plant, and moves downwards within the
stem (Barbier et al., 2017). There are different theories that might explain the mechanism of apical
dominance and how auxin affects the mechanism, however, there still isn’t universally accepted theory
(King and Stade, 1990; Kebrom 2017). Kebrom (2017) stated in his perspective article that there are
three theories of apical dominance, namely, direct, diversion, and indirect. The direct theory explains
that as auxin moves
Table 1. Height and length of axillary buds in response to apex decapitation of the Ocimum basilicum plant after 2 weeks.
Plant Height Axillary bud length
Set up Replicate
Initial Final Initial Final
C1 11 14 1.1 3
Control C2 10 12.5 0.8 3.5
C3 13 15 0.7 2.4
Mean 11.33333333 13.83333333 0.866666667 2.966666667
T1 13 14.8 1 8.5
Decapitated T2 11 13.5 1.5 7
T3 11 13.7 1.3 7
Mean 11.66666667 14 1.266666667 7.5
 Plant Height Axillary Bud Height
16 8
14 7
12 6

Length (cm)
Height (cm)

10 5
8 4
6 3
4 2
2 1
0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Days Days

Set Up 1 Set Up 2 Set Up 1 Set Up 2

Figure 3. Line graph of height and length of axillary buds in response to apex decapitation of the
Ocimum basilicum plant for 14 days

down the stem, it inhibits the growth of buds by inhibiting the bud to synthesize their own auxin
(Barbier et al., 2017; Kebrom 2017). The diversion theory states that auxin from apex prevents other
plant growth hormones, such as cytokinin, from entering buds and stimulate their growth (Barbier et al.,
2017; Kebrom stem which indirectly inhibits the growth of axillary buds. Later studies supported this
theory (Kebrom et al., 2012; Rabot et al., 2012; Mason et al., 2014; Barbier et al., 2015; Kebrom and
Mullet, 2015, 2016; Dierck et al., 2016; Tarancon et al., 2017) which explains that the growing stem
assimilates most of the sugar in the system and is being diverted away from axillary buds. Those studies
also explains that when the growing shoot tip in the apex is removed, the sugars will be rapidly
distributed to the other parts, especially actively growing parts such as axillary buds (Barbier et al.,
2017). Aside from those three theories, a study done by Tucker (1978) suggested that auxin induces the
production of abscisic acid which inhibits the growth of axillary bud. However, in this exercise, we only
performed the removal of growing shoot tip, which doesn’t tell us much about the concentration and
transport of hormones involved in the apical dominance. Regardless of which theory is more accurate,
the result in this exercise correlates with any of the theories and coincides with the apical dominance
phenomenon.

For the second part of the exercise, the recorded observations of the effect of environmental
factors to abscission in Vigna radiata’s is summarized in Table 2. Images also shows the changes of
appearance of the mung bean plants in different setups from Day 0 and Day 7 in Figure 5. During at Day
0, the appearance of the plants in three setups all look robust, green, and overall healthy. On Day 7, the
plants in Setup 1 doesn’t look that much different from its initial appearance, except for the slight
lighting in color and drooping of the leaves. In Setup 2, the plants look a bit thinner, some of the leaves
appear to be droopy and browning a little bit and some of those leaves are burnt at the tips. Still, it looks
overall healthy for plants that lacks irrigation for a relatively long period of time and the mean width in
this set up isn’t that significantly different from that of Setup 1. The plants in setup 3 have the worst
case of deterioration among the setups. At Day 7, all the plants wilted, and further inspection shows
that there were no living tissues left in the plants. However, despite the varying results in different
treatments, there wasn’t much abscission observed among the setups. Even in plants in setup where
drought is induced, they weren’t observed to shed any leaf and only browning. Perhaps if the
observation time frame is extended for few more days, the shedding of leaves might be observed.

A B

C D

Figure 4. Photographed images of Ocimum basilicum from Day 0 and Day 14. A) Day 0 Setup 1 with intact apex, visible axillary
buds are pointed by red arrows; B) Day 0 Setup 2 with decapitated apex, visible axillary buds are pointed by red arrows; C) Day
14 Setup 1 with intact apex, visible axillary buds are pointed by red arrows; D) Day 14 Setup 2 with decapitated apex, grown
axillary buds are indicated by red brackets

In the study of Biggs and Leopold (1957), it was concluded that abscission in plants is mainly
influenced by sugar. They also attributed the role of light in abscission to photosynthesis in their study.
The data collected from this part of this exercise coincides with these concepts as well. In Setup 2,
where the plants are well-supplemented with water but are kept in the dark, the leaves couldn’t
perform photosynthesis. The water molecules will not be hydrolyzed resulting to incapability of making
their own sugars. In Setup 3, the plants have plenty of light to use for photosynthesis. Even if they were
not supplemented with water, the plants were able to conserve their water content due to their
mechanism to prevent water loss. Because of the lack of irrigation, the plants in this setup were exposed
to drought or water stress. Mahouachi et al. (2007) mentioned in their study there is an increase of
Abscisic Acid in plants under water stress, and in turn promotes stomatal closure to minimize water loss
during transpiration. Therefore, plants in Setup 3 can still perform photosynthesis and create their own
sugars. But since the water content is not as abundant as those plants in Setup 1, the plants in Setup 3
can be observed to be slightly thinner and less turgid.
Table 2. Effect of environmental factors to abscission of the Vigna radiata plant after 7 days.
Leaf Size (width)
Samples Color Shape
R1 R2 R3 Ave
Full
Light Green ovate 4.8 4.5 3.5 4.266666667
sunlight
Yellow Green,
FS +
slight ovate 3.9 4 4.4 4.1
Drought
browning
Dark Brown/Wilted wrinkled/wilted 1.4 1.5 0.8 1.233333333

B C
A

D E

Figure 5. Photographed images of Vigna radiata from Day 0 and Day 7. A.) Initial appearance of plants
Setup 1 and Setup 3, indicated by arrow at Day 0, Setup 1 labeled as C and Setup 3 labeled as D; B)
Plants in Setup 1 after seven days; C) Plants in Setup 3 after seven days; D) Initial appearance of plants
Setup 2 at Day 0; C) Plants in Setup 2 after seven days.

CONCLUSION

This exercise aimed to observe and study the apical dominance and abscission in chosen plants.
The plants chosen for this exercise were Ocimum basilicum (basil) and Vigna radiatai (mung bean) for
Part 1 and Part 2 respectively. In Part 1, the phenomenon of apical dominance in basil plant was
observed through the removal of growing shoot tips. The growth of axillary buds in plants with
decapitated apex were much greater compared to the growth of axillary bud of the plants with intact
apex. There are different theories that can explain this phenomenon, but generally, it’s an effect of the
presence or absence of the auxin hormone and the involvement of the transport of cytokinin and
sugars. In Part 2, the effect of different environmental on abscission was tested and examined. Even
though the plants in all set up didn’t shed leaf or any plant organ, there were still some changes
observed that are related to abscission. The plants in drought induced setup just slightly deteriorated
compared to those of in control setup but can still be considered as healthy. While the plants in dark set
up couldn’t survive within the span of the observation period. The main driver of these changes is the
sugar content with the involvement of abscisic acid.

LITERATURE CITED

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