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In article ,
Stewart Robert Hinsley wrote:
In message
, Rupert
Bear writes
I have an old male Hop (Humulus Lupulus) from which late in the
season has budded out a variegated shoot (direct from rhizome).

The first two pictures are of a rooted cutting of the shoot.

The third picture is another cutting taken later from that cutting which
I took because of the strange mosaic variegation and odd leaf shape
on this bine (note that only five variegated leaves are showing in this
image as other leaves are from older 'normal' hops growing in the same
area.)

Both of these plants are now about 1M height (they will soon die back
for winter here in Australia) and will produce small rhizomes. When I
grow them both up to maturity next year and use the pollen to fertilise
some of my Hop cultivars, Goldings, Tettnanger, etc. Will they transfer
this trait to a few of the seeds?

1 http://tinyurl.com/2ek3lg

2 http://tinyurl.com/2u86jb

3 http://tinyurl.com/2jwx3k

Was hoping to produce a variegated ornamental female hop

Variegated plants are often chimaeras. If this is the case the
variegation won't pass through the pollen. (Depending on which genotype
contributes to the pollen you may pass the trait for the variant leaf
colour onto seedlings; this may well be recessive, but could be made
homozygous by backcrossing to the variegated plant. (Any homozygous
plant may be weak due to low/absent chlorophyll.)

But the above is not always the case. You can but try.

Variegation can also be caused by certain viral infections, so you
might want to try infecting a female plant, ideally not one of your
stock plants! I'm not sure of the best way to do this, but crushing a
variegated leaf, and smearing the juice on wounds on the victim might
work. Another method would be to graft material from the variegated
plant to a female plant and see if the variegation spreads to the
female.

Once virus-testing became effective, it was found that many commercial
cultivars of common vegetatively propagated trees and other plants were
heavily infested with viruses. In some cases, dwarf cultivars grew to
normal size once they were freed of viruses by tissue culture methods,
but in others the plant only became somewhat more productive. So
although chronic viral infection sounds horrible, it may not be a
problem for ornamental plants, although if you're in a commercial
hop-growing region, your neighbours may beg to differ with this
opinion. Viruses are commonly spread by aphids and other sucking
insects.

Have fun and good luck. I once tried to propagate variegated red
onions from a stripe-leaved plant that appeared spontaneously, but it
went to 100% white tissue and died before I got anywhere. I suspect it
was a virus infection.

Thank you, that's very interesting information, I will definitely try both
of these methods to 'infect' one of my hop cultivars, will have to patiently
wait around to December to do this as the hops have stopped growing now
and will soon start dying back. It will be easy to cut a couple of pieces of
rhizome from one of my stock plants to try these methods you have suggested.

If this works I will have to remember to say "look at my variegated ornamental
dwarf hop" and not "...my chronically viral infected stunted hop
Luckily there are no commercial hop growers in the region!

Will try sowing seeds as well, so might be able to come up with
something ...it will definitely be fun

Once again, thank you for taking the time to answer my question.

Rupert.