Trident maple GA knockout experiment

[Wires_Guy_wires]

When plants are exposed to insane amounts of hormones, they tend to switch off the related biochemical cascade all together.
I made a miscalculation once and exposed some citrus seeds to 100x too many hormones in an attempt to speed up germination. The result was that they turned into dwarfs, all of them. Some 10 years later they're still dwarfs, so I'm thinking I might have entirely knocked out the genes related to the hormone. Usually a knock out requires removal of a gene, but there are other ways to get an off-switch to function; think lactose intolerance for instance, for some reason the lactase gene gets switched off in some humans and lactose is treated by the body as an invasive chemical. Plants can have similar systems in check and might not respond to auxins for instance, after being exposed to agent orange which contains a heavy auxin.

This thread is used to document my repetition of that mistake on trident maples and see if I can succesfully dwarf them.
Some 75 seeds are soaking in the hormone solution right now, another 30 or so will act as controls and get a 'water treatment'.

Seeds are soaking right now and will be stratified afterwards. Or I'll just plop them in the soil. I'd like to know if you guys did any stratification or not and if it's really needed for tridents.

 

[ShadyStump]

I don't know about tridents, but I've researched several other maples I've found in my area and all suggested stratification of at least 30 days. Some, like the Rocky Mountain maple, require as long as 180 days following warm stratification of equal time.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

I don't know about tridents, but I've researched several other maples I've found in my area and all suggested stratification of at least 30 days. Some, like the Rocky Mountain maple, require as long as 180 days following warm stratification of equal time.

They say 90 days over here, but I'm thinking about cutting some edges and seeing if planting them outside now would be enough. That's about 30 cold days and 60 cold nights.
I have another batch of seeds in the freezer, so I'm considering winging it. Thanks for your comment!

 

[Shibui]

I find that fresh trident seed does not need stratification here. I still get great germination even when last autumn collected seed is planted after the last frosts.
Seed that has been dried and stored for longer than a few months is known to go into deeper dormancy that can be difficult to break. I suspect that's where the warm/cold stratification comes in.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

For reference:
Seed were dry on arrival. No idea on when they were collected or packaged.
They spent 48 hours in water at room temperature. About half of them sunk.
Sown on 03-03-2023 (D/M/YYYY) in coco coir with a potting soil top layer.
At night they got a good freeze at -4C. Another night with the same temperature. And tonight will be somewhat similar. Roughly 10C during the day.
From there on forward I truly hope to see some spring temperatures. For my own benefit.
Considering the space I have available, or lack thereof.. If one or two seeds germinate from both batches, I'm satisfied.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

First ones to pop up, both the control as well as the treated group have an N=1

 

[HorseloverFat]

ANY green (fresh) maple seed will "go" as soon as you plant it!

I LOVE this project, Guy_wires!

I have been considering trying VERY similar things...

I will "compare notes" when I can.

 

[Srt8madness]

Given that Trident maples response well to bonsai technique (ramification, leaf size reduction), what would the purpose of a dwarf cultivar be? Or is this more on the proof of concept side of things?

 

[HorseloverFat]

Given that Trident maples response well to bonsai technique (ramification, leaf size reduction), what would the purpose of a dwarf cultivar be? Or is this more on the proof of concept side of things?

Bredda... Bredda.... Bredda.

Dwarves will create even smaller leaves, way smaller "starting point, before reduction"

Also tiny internodes... Way better "starting point before reduction"

As well as growing about 3-4" per year, depending on growth points.

Their shorter "tallest average height" DOES require longer to develop...

But this also means your -chyma cells that exist to be dead, will 'tighten' and mature to scale...

In other words ALSO "smaller-detailed, faster maturing bark"..

Genetics and the first 3 years in a plant's life are my FAVORITE (horticulturally)... It's like an obsession.

 

[yashu]

Following this. Do you have any photos of the original trees from 10 years ago?

 

[Kanorin]

When plants are exposed to insane amounts of hormones, they tend to switch off the related biochemical cascade all together.
I made a miscalculation once and exposed some citrus seeds to 100x too many hormones in an attempt to speed up germination. The result was that they turned into dwarfs, all of them. Some 10 years later they're still dwarfs, so I'm thinking I might have entirely knocked out the genes related to the hormone. Usually a knock out requires removal of a gene, but there are other ways to get an off-switch to function; think lactose intolerance for instance, for some reason the lactase gene gets switched off in some humans and lactose is treated by the body as an invasive chemical. Plants can have similar systems in check and might not respond to auxins for instance, after being exposed to agent orange which contains a heavy auxin.

This thread is used to document my repetition of that mistake on trident maples and see if I can succesfully dwarf them.
Some 75 seeds are soaking in the hormone solution right now, another 30 or so will act as controls and get a 'water treatment'.

Seeds are soaking right now and will be stratified afterwards. Or I'll just plop them in the soil. I'd like to know if you guys did any stratification or not and if it's really needed for tridents.

Neat experiment.
You probably know this, but I'll explain for the general audience here. In mammals at least (I assume plants may act similar) this often occurs by the cells closing up the chromatin around genes that are key drivers of a pathway (for example proliferation, growth, hormone production, hormone receptors). When you close up the chromatin around a gene, that makes the gene less likely to be made into RNA and then protein. This phenomenon is called epigenetics. Some of these same tools of closing vs. opening certain segments of chromatin is partially responsible for baby animals "imprinting" so that they recognize their mother (and sometimes father too).

 

[ShadyStump]

Neat experiment.
You probably know this, but I'll explain for the general audience here. In mammals at least (I assume plants may act similar) this often occurs by the cells closing up the chromatin around genes that are key drivers of a pathway (for example proliferation, growth, hormone production, hormone receptors). When you close up the chromatin around a gene, that makes the gene less likely to be made into RNA and then protein. This phenomenon is called epigenetics. Some of these same tools of closing vs. opening certain segments of chromatin is partially responsible for baby animals "imprinting" so that they recognize their mother (and sometimes father too).

I was familiar with the term epigenetics, but really had no clue what was going on.
Thanks for the breakdown!

Between this and talking with an HVAC guy yesterday who geeked out hard on heat pump systems, I've been thoroughly educated this week.

God, I miss working in education.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Birds got all the seedlings and trashed the tray, all seedlings were sundried.
Experiment is cancelled until I find the energy to keep dealing with this shit.
YOU FORGET ONE DAY OF IRON MESH COVERING!

 

[BrightsideB]

We’re the fruits of these citrus tree’s smaller as well?

 

[ShadyStump]

Birds got all the seedlings and trashed the tray, all seedlings were sundried.
Experiment is cancelled until I find the energy to keep dealing with this shit.
YOU FORGET ONE DAY OF IRON MESH COVERING!

So, now that the birds have been exposed to the stuff you used, can we anticipate updates on the return of pterodactyls?

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

We’re the fruits of these citrus tree’s smaller as well?

Yes. They are scaled to the size of the plant.