Re: RE: Chlorophyl Challenged Seedling

Mary Swann-Young <MryL1@msn.com> wrote:
It's in a pot of mostly comercial potting soil with both fast-release and timed-release fertilizer mixed in.  I do stretch the soil some, mixing in some garden dirt.  It's in a window with southern exposure, but it's been really overcast.  Any point in putting it under grow-lights?  Spraying it with a little Miracle-Gro?  Thanks for answering, even if it is a death knell.
Mary Lou

Mary Lou
I don't post much, because I don't have much experience with iris.  But in my breeding work with ceraeals and vegetables, I've gotten many albino seedlings.  Usually, not always, they are second or third generation from an interspecific cross.
But no matter the ancestery, they are doomed.
I have heard of someone raising an albino African violet by turning it upside down and spraying it with sugar wsater daily.  The sugar water would get into the pores on the underside of the leaves (on African violets). The grower would  then spray it with funguscide, to conteract the sugar all over the plant.
An alfalfa breeder grew an albino interspecific alfalfa hybrid by grafting it onto a normal alfala. He then was able to backcross it to a parent, and get to the next generation.
Same thing is done routinely with cactus, of course.
A few others have been able to grow albino seedlings by such difficult methods.  The problem is, no green, no sugar.  You might as well grow it in the dark.
Sometimes such seedlings develope green before they run out of sugar from the seed.  Don't hold your breath.  None of mine ever did, whatever the species or cross.
I take my albino seedlings to the local high school biology teacher to show the kiids.  I never found any other use for them.
Walter

 
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