"Reka" wrote in message
...

"J Fortuna" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...
Reka,


On the other hand, I wonder what the negative side effects of this
genetic
engineering can be. I noticed that the article mentioned that the
speeding
up process has to be turned off once the buds develop, or it might lead
to
deformed blooms. I wonder if the engineered orchids flower as long as
normal
ones of the same species though. Also will the plant's life expectancy
change due to this process? Will it be less resistant, or more? It would
be
really neat if orchids could be genetically engineered to make them even
harder to kill than they already are, by making them less susceptible to
fungus for example?

These were some of my own thoughts, hoping someone in the group could
possibly shed some light on the subject.
--

I would be quite wary of it. There is always a cost associated with any
change we attempt to make in any system because of various kinds of
feedback, and the result can often be unpredictable.

With this particular example, if blooming happens sooner, presumably it
happens on smaller plants, and thus the energy that would normally go to
making a larger, more robust specimen is diverted into the bloom instead. I
would expect that that would lead to higher mortality rates, even if kept in
perfect conditions. Joanna has already pointed out that the gene being
manipulated has to be turned off once the buds develop in order to avoid
deformed flowers. I'd expect that it will be many years before most the
ramifications of such a manipulation have been enumerated.

Another issue arises wherein, if we suppose that the manipulation of the
gene governing how quickly a given specimen can bloom will lead to reduced
life span, as I'd expect when a plant is forced to bloom too young or small,
there arises a conflict of interest between the producer and consumer,
especially if the producer in question becomes dominant over the industry.
It might become difficult to get specimens that haven't been so altered, and
the producer might go so far as to produce only specimens that will bloom
once and then die in an attempt to force us who love to try to grow orchids
into buying one after another rather than simply maintaining our own
collection. I could be wrong, but I would not be surprised if this sort of
thing has been tried before, if not through direct genetic modification then
through breeding. Certainly, it seems that plants that ought to have a
reasonably long life (spanning a few years at least), cyclamen and begonias,
behave as if they're annuals in my care. I have yet to pursuade even one of
them to survive their first flowering. Of course, this may be because I am
a moron, but I do recall reading that they have been selected to give one
and only one spectacular display of flowers at the expense of those organs
required to survive long enough to bloom again. In the case of cyclamen, I
believe artificial selection has produced plants that have a tuber that is
too small to allow a plant to survive its first display of flowers.

And what happens if the modification is genetically dominant, modified
plants are not labelled, and one of us uses a modified plant in an
interesting cross not knowing it had been modified. How quickly or slowly
will our collections be contaminated by a genetic configuration that speeds
blooming but concommittantly increases mortality rates?

But this isn't so much a question of genetic manipulation as it is of
considering all the possible tradeoffs, since a similar modification can be
obtained, albeit at a slower rate, from selective breeding. I wonder if
anyone has collected data of survival rates adequate to compare life
expectancy for early blooming hybrids and cultivars vs. plants cultivated
from the seed from wild plants. If a given grower is breeding primarily for
his own collection, I'd expect his early blooming hybrids would also
survive quite well, but if he is breeding for a mass market (like the big
box stores), he probably doesn't care if the hybrid survives its first
flowering. I don't know, off hand, how one would check this sort of thing.

There is a reason I tend to gravitate toward species, and particularly
toward specimens thereof that are as close to the wild type as possible.

From all this, one might infer I oppose genetic experimentation, but that
would be wrong. It is necessary in order to figure out how genotypes relate
to phenotypes. But when it comes to commercialization, I would tend toward
extreme caution, just as one must be extremely cautious in any kind of
environmental management.

Cheers,

Ted

"J Fortuna" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...
Reka,


On the other hand, I wonder what the negative side effects of this genetic
engineering can be. I noticed that the article mentioned that the speeding
up process has to be turned off once the buds develop, or it might lead to
deformed blooms. I wonder if the engineered orchids flower as long as
normal
ones of the same species though. Also will the plant's life expectancy
change due to this process? Will it be less resistant, or more? It would
be
really neat if orchids could be genetically engineered to make them even
harder to kill than they already are, by making them less susceptible to
fungus for example?

These were some of my own thoughts, hoping someone in the group could
possibly shed some light on the subject.
--
Reka

I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)
http://www.rolbox.it/hukari/index.html



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