These environmental conditions limited the geographical areas where various plants could be grown or even bred on a small scale for genetic purposes. Even under ideal growing conditions, many types of plants such as trees can be used in plant genetic studies only with difficulty because of their slow flowering time. Scientists at UCSD anticipate that the genes are able to cause plants to flower significantly faster than was previously thought possible, with more fruiting bodies per stem, and more flowers per stem. The amount of speed-up in cycle time is a factor of the plant's normal breeding cycle time. The most immediate advantage is the faster breeding cycles permissible with these new genes.
Fertile seed is produced almost immediately after sprouting.
Because of the speed advantage, new plant breeding programs are available now that were never before practical. Scientists at UCSD anticipate that converting non-flowering tissue into flowering tissue will improve the yield of many basic crops such as tomatoes, garlic, corn, wheat, and broccoli. The strength of the early flowering response, when combined with proprietary controllable promoters, should make more practical chemically-induced flowering of select crops.