Mutation breeding

[Dorky_gearhead]

Has anybody heard of mutation breeding? I remember watching a video on it long before I got into bonsai. If you havnt heard of it, here's a link to wiki about it

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding.

I'm really considering sending out some seeds to a lab, or just putting some seeds in my pockets the next time I go to the dentist HAHA!!

Just another one of my off the wall thoughts I figured I'd share with everybody.

 

[Ironbeaver]

Do you want triffids? That's how you get triffids?

 

[Carol 83]

I don't know about mutation breeding, but last winter I got a couple little bougies from Wigerts on an eBay auction, planted in the same pot. One was yellow, the other was red. They were blooming when I got them, so I know for sure. This summer when they bloomed, all of the flowers were sort of salmon pink. Maybe they just became more than friends over the winter.

 

[Dan92119]

I have a grapefruit tree that the cultivar was created in 50’s or 60’s with radiation. From my understanding it was done a lot back then.

I was thinking about the radioactivity from a smoke alarm but I don’t think it would be strong enough to get through the seed casing to mutate the embryo.

 

[cbroad]

This is an interesting topic, I'm very interested in tinkering with plants to get odd varieties. Variegation in plants are sometimes created by breeding viruses into plants. I remember reading something a long time ago about soaking seeds in a solution of crushed up birth control pills to create polyploid plants with some really weird traits.

 

[Dorky_gearhead]

I don't know about mutation breeding, but last winter I got a couple little bougies from Wigerts on an eBay auction, planted in the same pot. One was yellow, the other was red. They were blooming when I got them, so I know for sure. This summer when they bloomed, all of the flowers were sort of salmon pink. Maybe they just became more than friends over the winter.

Radiation is one way to get mutations, another way is chemical. I know X rays are dangerious, but it seems safer than having DNA altering chemicals around the house.


Hmm birth control pills hmm.. My girlfriend has some old birth control pills that she no longer takes. I might have to give that a go.

 

[Handsome John]

I know that a lot of companies keep how they do under wraps now to keep new cultivars to themselves, but I've heard of growers using old school x-ray machines to breed new orchids. No idea if its entirely true but for sure using low radiation quickly develops new mutations

 

[BillsBayou]

Has anybody heard of mutation breeding? I remember watching a video on it long before I got into bonsai. If you havnt heard of it, here's a link to wiki about it
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding.

I wonder if we could find a fertilizer with unstable isotopes Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium. Potassium-40 has a half-life measured in billions of years. However, Phosphorous-32 has a half-life of 14 days and Nitrogen-13 has a half-life of 14 minutes, so you'd have to bring your trees to the fertilizer factory.

But if we expand NPK to NPKU-232, perhaps we could get a plants roots to take up the uranium. Stick with the U-232. You could get quicker results with U-235, but who wants a fissile fertilizer?

 

[cbroad]

but who wants a fissile fertilizer?

Hmm, I can think of a couple countries

 

[BillsBayou]

Hmm, I can think of a couple countries

I'm sure England could do a lot with three-headed cabbages. Like, cold-war-slaw.

 

[AlainK]

 

[bonsaidave]

Buy some tritium. You will need a bunch of those tiny little tubes though to sprinkle on the top dressing. One very cool side effect is your soil will be glow in the dark. Another possible side effect is you create super bugs.

I say it's worth the gamble

 

[leatherback]

Last I heard, BNut is drawing attention from the FBI ..

 

[AZbonsai]

 

[CasAH]

Buy some tritium. You will need a bunch of those tiny little tubes though to sprinkle on the top dressing. One very cool side effect is your soil will be glow in the dark. Another possible side effect is you create super bugs.

I say it's worth the gamble

There is plenty of it in the ground water and soil in the Red Gate Forest Preserve along Archer Avenue in Willow Springs,IL. It is the site of the original Fermi Lab where the research for splitting the atom moved to after Stagg Field at the University of Chicago.

 

[Dorky_gearhead]

Buy some tritium. You will need a bunch of those tiny little tubes though to sprinkle on the top dressing. One very cool side effect is your soil will be glow in the dark. Another possible side effect is you create super bugs.

I say it's worth the gamble

Super bugs would require a high oxygen environment. I kinda want to try that lmao!!

Last I heard, BNut is drawing attention from the FBI ..

Or the CDC on this post hah!

There is plenty of it in the ground water and soil in the Red Gate Forest Preserve along Archer Avenue in Willow Springs,IL. It is the site of the original Fermi Lab where the research for splitting the atom moved to after Stagg Field at the University of Chicago.

I bet there' some pretty interesting plants/animals around there!