Message from Andrew to Andrea

This message from Andrew bounced at Hosta-Open. This happens every now and then for reasons unkown to me. Dan
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Andrea,
I believe it is safe to say that all streaked plants are unstable.  This
seems to be due to the following: a streaked plant is actually a series of
sectorial chimeras, all of which are unstable in the apex of the meristem.
There is not much the seller or the plant itself can do to control this.
One year you have steaks, the next year you may not.

When a purchase is made for a streaked plant, I hope this is knowledge
already understood by the purchaser.  There must be great intrique in
owning/growing streaked plants because thousands of people are purchasing
such streaky plants and paying relatively higher prices.  From what I can
tell, however, sooner or later they either revert or stablize to something
other than what they were when juvenile.   So to me, the statement "gotten
nothing but junk" is a bit strong.  Better might be, "quickly reverted" or
"quickly stabilized to one of the parent plant".

Now about your non-streaked Foxy Doxy.  Have you tried Ed Elslager's
recommendation of cutting this plant up to see if you can recover any of the
streaking?  It's an intriguing technique to isolate a gene pool that might
remove the dominant, stabilized genes out of the gene pool.  Another thing
that can force streaking is to place the plant in a "hothouse" environment.
This will either force some juxtapositioning (through a phenomena that I
believe still remains largely undescribed in the literature--perhaps it has
something to do with an increase in the occurrance of promoter enzymes that
lead to tRNA or mRNA transcription errors (mutations) but I've a long way to
go prior to having any real understanding.  Would like more info on this if
anyone has such and is willing to share) in the gene pool and promote new
streaking, or spawn a new sport, or simply  kill the plant if you let it get
too hot.  Either way, you might enjoy the result more than you are enjoying
your Foxy Doxy Gold plant that has now become "junk".  Just a thought that
could lead to greater satisfaction.

RE:> the term "Hostalady"-- I believe it is only an eBay handle.  People
call me "The Hostaman" all of the time.  I don't think they mean any harm by
it, and since I hang around them (Hosta) so much, I have become aware that
many people see me as "A" Hostaman.  I don't know who THE Hostaman is.
Certainly, Pauline Banyai is a pillar in the Hosta world yet I don't know
that this other person means any disrespect by choosing that handle.  It's
just a handle that no one else had already taken when that person signed up
with eBay. You have to have a handle in order to buy or sell and apparently
this one was not taken.  Had "Hostaman" been available when I signed up, I
would have GLADLY claimed it as my handle.  I'm sure someone would have felt
that bold.  Unfortunately, someone beat me to the punch.  I view this choice
of a handle as a marketing ploy, designed to attract attention.  Apparently
it is working...

Good luck with your Hosta garden!

Andrew Lietzow
#1 Plantsman at http://HostaHaven.com
1250 41st Street
Des Moines, IA 50311-2516
eBay Search: <Hosta HH>

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