Increasing plant growth and yield by using an erf transcription factor sequence

Abstract

Compositions and methods for improving plant growth are provided herein. Polynucleotides encoding ERF transcription factor proteins, polypeptides encompassing ERF transcription factor proteins, and expression constructs for expressing genes of interest whose expression may improve agronomic properties including but not limited to crop yield, biotic and abiotic stress tolerance, and early vigor, plants comprising the polynucleotides, polypeptides, and expression constructs, and methods of producing transgenic plants are also provided.

We claim: 
     
         1 . A construct comprising a promoter that drives expression in a plant cell operably linked to an ethylene response factor (ERF) transcription factor protein-encoding sequence, wherein said promoter is heterologous to said ERF transcription factor protein-encoding sequence and wherein said ERF transcription factor protein-encoding sequence has at least 95% identity to the sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO:1 or encodes a protein having 95% amino acid sequence identity to the amino acid sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO: 2. 
     
     
         2 . The construct of  claim 1  wherein said ERF transcription factor protein-encoding sequence comprises the sequence set forth in SEQ ID NO:1 or encodes a protein that comprises the amino acid sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO: 2. 
     
     
         3 . The construct of  claim 1 , wherein said promoter that drives expression in a plant cell is selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NO:5 and SEQ ID NO:8. 
     
     
         4 . The construct of  claim 1 , wherein said construct is present in a plasmid. 
     
     
         5 . The plasmid of  claim 4 , further comprising an origin of replication.