A well-defined set of regulatory pathways control entry into the reproductive phase in flowering plants, but little is known about the mechanistic control of the end-of-flowering despite this being a critical process for optimization of fruit and seed production. Complete fruit removal, or lack of fertile fruit-set, prevents timely inflorescence arrest in Arabidopsis, leading to a previous proposal that a cumulative fruit/seed-derived signal causes simultaneous ‘global proliferative arrest’. Recent studies have suggested that inflorescence arrest involves gene expression changes in the inflorescence meristem that are, at least in part, controlled by the FRUITFULL–APETALA2 pathway; however, there is limited understanding of how this process is coordinated at the whole-plant level. Here, we provide a framework for the communication previously inferred in the global proliferative arrest model. We show that the end-of-flowering in Arabidopsis is not ‘global’ and does not occur synchronously between branches, but rather that the arrest of each inflorescence is a local process, driven by auxin export from fruit proximal to the inflorescence apex. Furthermore, we show that inflorescences are competent for arrest only once they reach a certain developmental age. Understanding the regulation of inflorescence arrest will be of major importance to extending and maximizing crop yields.

一组明确定义的调节途径控制着开花植物进入生殖期的过程，但是对开花结束的机械控制知之甚少，尽管这是优化果实和种子生产的关键过程。完全去除水果或缺乏可育的坐果，阻止了拟南芥中及时的花序停滞，从而导致先前的提议，即累积的果实/种子衍生信号会同时导致“全球增生停滞”。最近的研究表明，花序停滞涉及花序分生组织中的基因表达变化，该变化至少部分受FRUITFULL–APETALA2控制途径 但是，对于整个工厂如何协调此过程的了解有限。在这里，我们为先前在全球增殖逮捕模型中推断出的交流提供了一个框架。我们显示，在拟南芥中的开花结束不是“全局”的，并且不会在分支之间同步发生，而是每个花序的阻滞是一个局部过程，这是由生长素从接近花序先端的果实中的生长素输出驱动的。此外，我们表明，花序只有在达到一定的发育年龄时才具有捕获能力。了解花序停滞的规律对扩大和最大化农作物产量至关重要。