Bulked seeds of Lavandula latifolia Medicus (spike lavender), from Spanish natural populations (Intersemillas SA, Valencia Spain), were germinated under sterile conditions as described by Calvo and Segura (1998). The first two pairs of leaves from 40-day old in vitro grown seedlings were used as primary explants for transformation. Transgenic T0 lines refer to plants regenerated from those explants. T1 plants (first generation) are seed-derived plants obtained from controlled self-pollination of T0 plants. Non-transgenic, wild type (WT) spike lavender plants were grown under the same conditions. Transgenic DXS6 line that overexpresses the DXP synthase (DXS) gene from Arabidopsis thaliana ( Muñoz-Bertomeu et al., 2006) was used as a control.
Flowers and 3 Sets of pooled leaves were sampled for molecular and phenotypical analyses. Fully open leaves were harvested from the 1st and 2nd whorls (Set I); 3rd whorl (Set II), and from the 4th to 10th whorls (Set III).