Narrator: This is Science Today. A biology lab at the University of California, San Diego that specializes in corn and corn development, has isolated a gene called barren stalk 1, which appears to play a very important role in regulating branching in maize plants. Biologist Robert Schmidt says it regulates the initiation of what are called lateral meristems.

Schmidt: So, you can imagine that plants would be pretty boring if you didn't have an ability to make these lateral or axillary meristems. You'd basically have a one-dimensional organism.

Narrator: Schmidt says understanding how this gene works could have important commercial applications.

Schmidt: It may be important to efforts that are designed to engineer new architectures in plants – to make them more efficient at capturing sunlight for photosynthesis, so they could be perhaps more productive; modifying their shape or form in ways that would make them more amenable to mechanized harvesting or even manual harvesting.

Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.