regulates inflorescence development and grain production in plants.

Female inflorescence is the primary output of medical . It contains hundreds of cannabinoids that accumulate in the glandular trichomes. However, little is known about the genetic mechanisms governing inflorescence development. In this study, we reported the map-based cloning of a gene determining the number of inflorescences per branch. We named this gene since it encodes a transcription factor that belongs to the MIKC-type MADS subfamily. Constitutive overexpression of increases inflorescence number per branch, thereby promoting flower production as well as grain yield in transgenic plants. We further identified a plant-specific transcription factor, CsBPC2, promoting the expression of . mutants and mutants were successfully created using the CRISPR-Cas9 system; they exhibited similar inflorescence degeneration and grain reduction. We also validated the interaction of CsMIKC1 with CsVIP3, which suppressed expression of four inflorescence development-related genes in . Our findings establish important roles for in , which could represent a previously unrecognized mechanism of inflorescence development regulated by ethylene.