Abstract
Petal breakstrength (pBS) is a method to study floral organ abscission by quantitating the force required to pull a petal from the receptacle. However, it is only well established in some labs and used in a subset of abscission studies. Here, we describe the mechanism and operation of the pBS meter, as well as detailed measurement and further data analysis. We show that it is a powerful tool to detect early or delayed floral organ abscission in mutant or transgenic plants, which is not easily detected by phenotypic investigation.
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