Re: AR: Chromosome Segregation

From: celia storey <storey@aristotle.net>

>3.      Backcrossing to tetraploid TBs, which produce BB-type gametes.
>This time, seedlings will tend to be ABBB-type tetraploids or BBB-type
>triploids, both relatively infertile -- but the latter are pure TB and
>either type can produce fully fertile BBBB-type tetraploids if crossed back
>to TB lines.
>

Dear Sharon, how I admire you from reading your posts. Even more so when I
think how you must be dumbing things down so I can decipher them! :-)

Remember the pollen offer (spring '97) in which you sent many of us some AB
pollen? And I crossed mine to a few TBs, of which only one, STOP THE MUSIC,
set a pod. And there were 34 seeds in that pod, which I direct-planted in
July '97 into my Little Rock garden, in rather sandy fertile soil on the
side of a gentle slope.

All told, 14 sprouted. I have 11 healthy babies left after our wet winter
and drought-like summer.

Most bear 8-9 leaves now which fan out on a very straight plane. The runt
didn't sprout until summer; it has five slender leaves and they cup
decidely at the base.

>17" seedling has six -- 6 -- offsets, five emerging to the front of the
>main fan, one immediately behind. This main fan at this moment is deeply
>divided from the middle to allow two -- 2! -- new central leaves to emerge
>at once, both about the same height.

>18" seedling has 3 one-inch pups, emerging behind the main fan, which cups
>slightly

>20" seedling has 3 one-inch pups, emerging behind the main fan, which cups
>slightly

>of the four 9-inchers, only one has made offsets -- two little ones,
>emerging in front of the main fan.

>8" seedling has two pups, emerging to the side of the main fan, one
>already eight inches tall, the other quite small.

>The other two seedlings are 15-inchers with three backside pups apiece.

Meanwhile, STM grows 25" fans for me and each rz produces three pups,
emerging to the backside of the mother. The fans cup forward at the base
and they divide rather deeply from the middle when a new central leaf
begins pushing up.

Now, here is my peabrain question. From the foliage behavior alone, can I
make judgments about which seedlings bear the most aril genes? How do
arilly seedlings behave?

The two ABs I grow elsewhere in my garden put on many more offsets every
season than do most of my TBs, so I've decided rampant growth must be an
aril-type characteristic. Certainly STM is not prodigious, setting three
pups.

Would fan height also be a distinguishing factor? The taller the baby, the
more likely to be predominantly TB?

What about the very straight display of some of these fans? Most show no
curling or cupping. But I wonder if cupping is merely a product of rhizome
size?

Only three seedlings have severed used-up leaves other than the seed leaf
at all this summer, certainly not behavior similar to that of the average
TB in my patch. At the height of our drought in July, the shortest
seedlings showed some tip browning, but not on all leaves. Most of my TBs
were tip-brown on nearly every leaf in July.

All of this boring detail is of course fantastically interesting to me.
Thank you so much for giving me the chance to watch and learn.

celia
s*@aristotle.net
Little Rock, Arkansas, USDA Zone 7b
-----------------------------------
257 feet above sea level,
average rainfall about 50 inches (more than 60" in '97)
average relative humidity (at 6 a.m.) 84%.
moderate winters, hot summers ... but lots of seesaw action in all seasons



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