Orange vs Pink & methyl-alcohol treatment of beta-carotene

---

Chuck,

Thanks for the photo, I will have to get back to you on this, The late
snows this year has really set my SDB irises back. I am not sure I
will see all the F1s I would have seen without all this crazy weather.
In fact it is snowing here as I write this (13 APR 07).

A couple of things come to mind when I see the photo. First, there is
enough lycopene in the treated petal that it should be visible in the
untreated petal which it isn't. So that leaves us with where did that
much lycopene come from?

I am wondering if the double rings in the beta-carotene molecule
aren't broken in the boiling process and thus reverting back to
lycopene. I guess one way to check this would be to boil some carrots
in methyl-alcohol and see if they turn red.

I have one flower out from a Helmsman (orange) self pollination and it
is pink. This tells me Helmsman is probably TTtt, oooo. But I don't
have any more seedlings blooming and with this snow, I am not sure I
am going to get a handle on what is going on genetic-wise this year.

I would certainly be surprised to get yellow to segregate out of this
self. This would boost your idea that orange is a mix of lycopene and
some of the yellow carotenoids. But it also could mean that orange is
a high dose of lutein in which case we both would be wrong. Recall,
the difference in orange and yellow flowers in marigolds is due to the
concentration of lutein.

Dan

--- In iris-photos@yahoogroups.com, irischapman@... wrote:
>
> Here is a photo of an extraction from the orange iris Thai Orange.
As you can see after the majority of the carotenes are removed by
being boiled in metyl alcohol there is a significant amount of
lycopene left behind. Probably as much as is in the most saturated
lycopene pink. This is the same in all the orange iris I have examined
by this method. All orange iris have four "t" genes. An examination of
pedagres using the check list will confirm this.
>
> Further post to follow.
>
> Chuck Chapman

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