OT: Dust Devils, Tornados & Iris
From: Sharon McAllister <73372.1745@compuserve.com>
Mike Sutton wrote:
>
We get those dust or dirt devils in a big way here. They suck up so much
dirt and send it in the sky that they look like a tornado. I have seen
them
pick up large objects and toss them around. <
Yes, but I grew up in Oklahoma with full-grown tornados and have lived in
New Mexico's dust devils for over 30 years so I can tell you that there's
a BIG difference in scale.
I have absolutely nothing good to say about tornados. Dust devils,
however.....
Some years ago, I was in the seedling patch trying to make as many planned
crosses as I could in a short period of time. I had a tray of cups
containing tetraploid aril pollen, all with their lids off because I was
pressed for time. I was so intent on what I was doing that a small dust
devil hit before I could stash the tray back in the carrier. Pollen cups
went flying and anthers were strewn everywhere.
Tetraploid aril pollen is too precious to waste, but tetraploid aril
flowers are too precious to use with unknown pollen. So I searched the
sand, picked up all the anthers I could find, and looked around the garden
for an appropriate experiment.
Some early quarterbreds were in bloom. In theory, a cross between a
quarterbred and a tetraploid aril can produce a fully functional halfbred
-- but I'd never had the "spare" pollen to test it. So that year I used up
all of my mixed tetraploid aril pollen on quarterbreds.
The result -- far more seedlings from one season's mishap than 20 years of
painstaking crosses of tetraploid arils onto tetraploid TBs. In
appearance, most of these seedlings were indistinguishable from halfbred
seedlings produced by conventional means.
The ones I tested proved to be fully fertile. In later years I repeated
this type of cross using known parents and now believe that it is the
easiest way to bring genes from the newer TBs into halfbred lines.
And all because of a dust devil......
Sharon McAllister
73372.1745@compuserve.com
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