Patent ID: 8796505

Claim:
A method of delaying growth of a plant comprising the steps of: a) providing a TPS protein encoded by a plant TPS gene; b) designing a suitable modification to the plant TPS gene by truncating or deleting an N-terminal part of the TPS protein encoded by the plant TPS gene in order to achieve an increased trehalose-6-phosphate synthase activity; c) cloning the thus modified gene into an expression vector under the control of a constitutive, inducible and/or organ-specific promoter; and d) transforming the plant or tissue from the plant with the thus obtained expression vector, wherein the growth of the plant is delayed, and wherein the TPS gene is selected from the group consisting of rice, Arabidopsis thaliana, Selaginella lepidophylla , apple, sugar beet, sunflower ( Helianthus annuus ), tobacco ( Nicotiana tabacum ), and soybean ( Glycine max ).