Many plants degenerate and die rather suddenly toward the end of their reproductive phase.
In soybeans, the developing seeds trigger this senescence process which appears to limit seed yield. Because of its advantages in genetic analyses, they are also developing Arabidopsis thaliana as a system for studying senescence, and they are getting senescence mutations. Currently, he is studying the genetic and light controls of senescence and seed development. He was an NIH Special Research Fellow at CalTech in 1971-72 and a Fulbright Senior Research Fellow at Australian National University in 1983. Cytokinin metabolism and signaling in the soybean plant.