Re: TC Questions
- Subject: Re: TC Questions
- From: H* P*
- Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 21:37:39 +0100
> 1. Clearly there is no F 1, F 2.. ...generation when it comes to TC. Is
> there any hint, theory, or suggestion that one can get into trouble by
> having the clone of a clone of a clone.......Is there anything to suggest
> that by TCing a plant and then TCing that plant..... ad infinitum, that
you
> can get into trouble?
Glen, I was intrigued by a similar question a few months ago. It's called
"somaclonal variation" (look this one up in Google). In vitro "can" lead to
all kinds of variations: changes in size, dwarfs, changes in leaf color,
change
from fertile to sterile, gain/loss in vigor, changes in chromosome numbers,
changes in chromosome structure, changes in resistance, chimeras, glossy/
powdery, etc...
If we look at it from an optimistic point of view TC could bring us a whole
bunch of new plants, some of them horticulturally interesting (as we can see
from the number of new TC sports offered these days).
However from a pessimistic point of view this means that if we want to
quickly
propagate "one" specific hosta cultivar using TC, we can never be sure that
we
will get the same hosta. This has been proved over and over again. Yes, one
can
throw away the ones that look different but I don't think that any TC lab
will do
chromosomal screening to check if it's really the same hosta. So the one you
buy
might be less vigorous, sterile, lethal, ... On the other hand you might get
a better
hosta.
Hugo
----------------------------------------
Hugo Philips
Brasschaat
Belgium
Home of HostaMania: http://go.to/hosta
Hosta Links Page: http://users.skynet.be/hostamania/hostalinks.htm
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