Table 4.

Examples of molecular mechanisms underlying developmental variation in crops.

Crop	Gene	Mutation	Molecular Outcome	Trait Outcome	Reference
Rice	SD1	Nucleotide polymorphism, amino acid substitution.	Loss of enzyme activity, decreased gibberellins.	Reduced plant height, higher harvest index.	Monna et al., 2002; Sasaki et al., 2002; Spielmeyer et al., 2002.
Tomato	SFT	Nucleotide polymorphism, amino acid substitution.	Reduced protein function.	Delay of developmental transitions, higher fruit yield.	Krieger et al., 2010.
Rice	SPL14	Nucleotide substitution, microRNA binding site disrupted.	Increased gene expression.	Increased panicle branching, increased grain yield.	Jiao et al., 2010; Miura et al., 2010.
Wheat	RHT1	Deletion of part of gene causing translational frame shift.	Loss of protein domain required for gibberellin-induced breakdown.	GA-insensitive, semi-dwarf stature, higher harvest index.	Peng et al., 1999.
Barley	VRN2	Deletion of gene.	Loss of flowering repressor.	Early flowering without vernalization.	Yan et al., 2004.
Maize	TB1	Transposon insertion.	Elevated expression.	Repression of tillering, allows high-density sowing.	Studer et al., 2011.

SD1, SEMIDWARF 1; SFT,Solanum FLOWERING LOCUS T; SPL14, SQUAMOSA PROMOTER BINDING PROTEIN-like 14; RHT1, REDUCED HEIGHT 1; VRN2, VERNALIZATION 2; TB1, TEOSINTE BRANCED1; GA, gibberellic acids.