Adaptable to artificial environment of lab 4. Short generation time 5. A nearly-sequenced genome. While less publicized than the Human Genome Project, a parallel project to sequence Arabidopsis is nearly complete.
Plants begin their lives in the incubator, grown on sterile nutrient medium.
White light breaks down auxin, so plants grown on auxin-supplemented medium are grown under yellow filters. A small selection of my plants. Once they are about 10 days old, they are transferred to soil and live on shelves under 24-hour light. The mutants I work with are abnormal in the root curling and waving behaviors. They were originally identified as being auxin supersensitive, having more lateral roots at 28 degrees than normal plants.