Israeli doctoral student:
"Global warming diminishes petunia scent"
Alon Can’ani had been studying the mechanisms by which petunias regulate their production of scent molecules.
Working at the Hebrew University’s Faculty of Agriculture, Can’ani discovered that petunias grown in conditions of warmer than optimal temperature make significantly less perfume, he explains in his paper “Petunia × hybrida floral scent production is negatively affected by high-temperature growth conditions,” published in the journal Plant, Cell & Environment.
As normal gardeners and botanists do, Can'ani bought cuttings from a local nursery and cultivated the cuttings in optimal temperature (22-24 degrees Celsius), he told Haaretz. Then the group of cuttings was split into two.
Some of the cuttings continued to grow in optimal conditions. The rest were grown in elevated temperature in a phytotron, a special greenhouse where the conditions can be totally controlled.
At 28 degrees, Can’ani tells Haaretz, perfume production was significantly depressed. (No great difference was noted between that temperature and an even more extreme one of 34 degrees, he noted.)
Further research uncovered that the difference in scent production was due to the heat arresting the genetic expression of specific proteins involved in perfume production.
Read more at Haaretz
