horticulture Horticulture (from ) is the art and science of growing fruits, vegetables, flowers, trees, shrubs and ornamental plants. Horticulture is commonly associated with the more professional and technical aspects of plant cultivation on a smaller and mo ...

, bolting is the production of a flowering stem (or stems) on agricultural and horticultural

crop A crop is a plant that can be grown and harvested extensively for profit or subsistence. In other words, a crop is a plant or plant product that is grown for a specific purpose such as food, Fiber, fibre, or fuel. When plants of the same spe ...

s before the harvesting of a crop, at a stage when a plant makes a natural attempt to produce seeds and to reproduce. The flowering stems are usually vigorous extensions of existing leaf-bearing stems; to produce them, a plant diverts resources from producing the edible parts (such as leaves or roots), resulting in changes in flavor and texture, withering, and in general, a poor-quality harvest. Plants that have produced flowering stems in this way are said to have bolted. Crops inclined to bolt include

lettuce Lettuce (''Lactuca sativa'') is an annual plant of the family Asteraceae mostly grown as a leaf vegetable. The leaves are most often used raw in Green salad, green salads, although lettuce is also seen in other kinds of food, such as sandwiche ...

, basil, beetroot, brassicas,

spinach Spinach (''Spinacia oleracea'') is a leafy green flowering plant native to Central Asia, Central and Western Asia. It is of the order Caryophyllales, family Amaranthaceae, subfamily Chenopodioideae. Its leaves are a common vegetable consumed eit ...

celery Celery (''Apium graveolens'' Dulce Group or ''Apium graveolens'' var. ''dulce'') is a cultivated plant belonging to the species ''Apium graveolens'' in the family Apiaceae that has been used as a vegetable since ancient times. The original wild ...

onion An onion (''Allium cepa'' , from Latin ), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus '' Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onion which was classifie ...

, and leek. Bolting is induced by plant hormones of the

gibberellin Gibberellins (GAs) are plant hormones that regulate various Biological process, developmental processes, including Plant stem, stem elongation, germination, dormancy, flowering, flower development, and leaf and fruit senescence. They are one of th ...

family, and can occur as a result of several factors, including changes in day length, the prevalence of high temperatures at particular stages in a plant's growth-cycle, and the existence of stresses such as insufficient water or minerals. These factors may interact in a complex way. Day-length may affect the propensity to bolt in that some plants are "long day plants", some are "short day plants" and some are "day neutral" (see photoperiodism), so for example when a long day plant, such as spinach, experiences increasingly long days that reach a particular length, it will tend to bolt. Low or high temperatures can affect the propensity of some plants to bolt if they occur for sufficient periods at particular points in the life-cycle of the plant; once these conditions have been met, plants that require such a trigger will subsequently bolt regardless of subsequent temperatures. Plants under stress may respond by bolting so that they can produce seeds before they die. Plant breeders have introduced

cultivar A cultivar is a kind of Horticulture, cultivated plant that people have selected for desired phenotypic trait, traits and which retains those traits when Plant propagation, propagated. Methods used to propagate cultivars include division, root a ...

s of "bolt-proof" crops that are less prone to the condition.

References

{{Reflist Horticulture