The item on Colcichine and diploid/tetraploid
was fascinating.

Could anyone tell me how much Colcihine would
be needed? This comes as 500 microgrammes as a Gout
treatment tablet. Would say 4 of these disolved in
water and used to germinate seeds do the job?

Would I be likely to end up with a man eating Triffid
or a triangular Tomato plant?

Also would any changes to the plant be passed on
to its seeds?

Thanks

Careful with that axe Eugene wrote:
The item on Colcichine and diploid/tetraploid
was fascinating.

Could anyone tell me how much Colcihine would
be needed? This comes as 500 microgrammes as a Gout
treatment tablet. Would say 4 of these disolved in
water and used to germinate seeds do the job?

Would I be likely to end up with a man eating Triffid
or a triangular Tomato plant?

Also would any changes to the plant be passed on
to its seeds?

Thanks

Dave Poole seems to know about this so if he replies, then ignore what
I say here but here is my guess:

it will be hit and miss. The plant may already be a polyploid; each
plant that survives (some will be a mess and will not grow properly)
may be a mixture of diploid and polyploid bits; if the germ cells are
polyploid, you can get polyploid seeds but these may be messed up and
may not be fertile; I think, breeders have used colchicine to give
super plants and urban legend says it has been done with Cannabis
sativa but my guess is that you would need to grow a pile of them and
select the ones that work best and dump the majority as failures. With
C.sativa, I think there is no point as the strains that are out there
and which you can apparently get seeds for very easily are already,
apparently, fast growing and strong to the point of being downright
dangerous. With tomatoes, I am very happy with my Sungolds and my
Ailsa Craigs this year :-).

In message . com,
Careful with that axe Eugene writes
The item on Colcichine and diploid/tetraploid
was fascinating.

Could anyone tell me how much Colcihine would
be needed? This comes as 500 microgrammes as a Gout
treatment tablet. Would say 4 of these disolved in
water and used to germinate seeds do the job?

You can find protocols with Google or Google Scholar. But I wouldn't
recommend amateur use of colchicine, due to its toxicity. (I'd expect it
to be carcinogenic as well, but I failed to find documentation for that
when I looked for it.)

Would I be likely to end up with a man eating Triffid
or a triangular Tomato plant?

If a seedling/cutting is correctly treated with colchicine you are
likely to end up with a plant which is a chimaera of diploid and
polyploid (mostly tetraploid) tissues. A sectorial chimaera (i.e. some
branches diploid and some tetraploid) is the most likely result.

Telling the diploid and tetraploid sectors apart will probably be
difficult with the naked eye - the poor man's technique (i.e. not
counting chromosomes or using flow cytometry) is to measure the size of
leaf stomata or pollen grains, which are larger in polyploids.

If the original plant is a sterile hybrid the tetraploid may well be
fertile, and you can recognise the tetraploid by the production of seed,
and propagate it by that seed. This is the usual use of colchicine
treatment in agronomy - to obtain a fertile seed strain from a sterile
hybrid.

Another use is to produce a tetraploid form of a species, and then cross
it with the diploid to produce a triploid. The triploid doesn't set seed
in any quantity, and therefore may be more floriferous. (I'm growing a
couple of triploid hybrid mallows, and they show this effect, as well as
displaying hybrid vigour.)

Also would any changes to the plant be passed on
to its seeds?

Yes.

Thanks



--
Stewart Robert Hinsley

"Careful with that axe Eugene" wrote in message
ups.com...
The item on Colcichine and diploid/tetraploid
was fascinating.

Could anyone tell me how much Colcihine would
be needed? This comes as 500 microgrammes as a Gout
treatment tablet. Would say 4 of these disolved in
water and used to germinate seeds do the job?

Would I be likely to end up with a man eating Triffid
or a triangular Tomato plant?

Also would any changes to the plant be passed on
to its seeds?

Thanks

Know nothing about this technically, but am familiar with a clematis montana
called 'Tetra Rose' which I know was created using these techniques and has
as a consequence larger leaves and flowers, it has produced seedlings which
are all normal.

--
Charlie, gardening in Cornwall.
http://www.roselandhouse.co.uk
Holders of National Plant Collection of Clematis viticella (cvs)