GreenMan

Soooo what exactly causes increased vigor in some F1 hybrids? I am talking about plants. Is it domianance or overdominance? Even when I read explanations about these two hypothesis,it is not explained in detal,on a genetic and molecular level.Also,what I don't quite understand,when creating vigorous F1 hybrids,do the pure lines *need* to be homozygous to achieve the increased vigor effect,and if so,why? Or is it done to simply impove uniformity? Any answers and/or sources of latest research on the topic would be greatly appreciated!

Well,I got one 8W germicidal UV tube.I have no idea if it will do the job.These tubes are extremely difficult to find,and when you find one,it's 10x more expensive than a regular fluorescent tube,even though it's just a regular tube without the inner coating... The weird thing is that it actually glows dimly,and I don't notice any common fluorescent materials glowing under it,though it's own light might be interfering with what can be seen. The first thing I'm going to do is see if this thing actually has any UV power in it,if it does,it should kill most of the seedlings that sprouted in the dark after 30min exposure.I'll be back in a couple of days witht the results.

Most seeds germinate under soil and thus are protected from the UV radiation when most vunerable.Also,at the ground level UV portion of the sun radiation is only ~3%. About the variegated plants,well I can go and try to infect healthy plants and see if they develop variegation.For the grass I am 99% sure that it's genetic,because I doubt the virus would produce patterns seen in the photo.As for the pursulane much remains unknown.

I think the main problem even if such human would exist is functionality of sex organs.It's almost guaranteed that one of the reproductive organs,testes or ovaries would not function,because both organs have very different hormone requirements to work properly and produce eggs/sperm.For example if you continuously inject a male with a coctail of female hormones (estrogen),achieveing the same hormonal composition as in an avarage female,the male reproductive system would be suppressed(Which is exactly what happens in sex change hormone therapies). I imagine in a human hermaphrodite which produces all the hormones needed for both female and male sex organs would just end up having both ovaries and testes that don't really do anything.So it's far more complicated than anyone could guess,it would probably requre many genetic changes,and not just on sex chromosomes.

Hey thanks for your reply,I find the articles you provided amazing,I had no idea you can actually order genes lol,I wonder if I can get my hands on some other ones other than the gene for glow.But my knowledge about genetics is very limited,I don't have the education in this area although I'm constantly reading about it on various sites on the internet. Mutation breeding is simple enough I can do it myself,however the problem is getting the chemicals and materials I need. What caught my eye is the UV light,I think I can definitely get that.In my opinion mutation breeding is all about how many seeds/cells/plantlets you expose,because the mutations are so random and largely deletorius.UV light has it's drawbacks as it mostly doesn't penetrate seeds,but I bet it can penetrate germinating pollen and seeds of plants that have very tiny ones,like orchids and begonias,and could also do wonders on fern spores and gametophytes.The best aplication of UV would of course be on the growing tissue culture,but I can't get the chemicals I need for it. Of the chemical mutagens I found nitrous acid to be quite easy to synthesise at home from home chemicals and comerical nitrogen fertilizers.What I would like to try is a combination of chemical and physical mutagens. Anyway thanks again,and hope more will come do discuss on the topic! Happy mutagenesis As for the plants I posted,I already got their seeds,they have a dormancy period so it will take some time until i see their offspring,but seeing how seeds of that grass are vareigated too I think these mutations might be heritable.I'm actually hoping of getting a few complete albinos of that grass because I find albino plants very cool and would like to find a way to keep them alive. Lol ok I have to edit one more time xD I was thinking of another way of inducing mutations.By electrolysis.I would soak the seeds in water which has a small amount of solvents in it to make it elcetrically conductive.When the seeds are fully rehydrated,a high voltage current would be applied through the water.The idea is to have large amount of groups,to experiment with different voltages and duration of applied current.What do you guys think of this?

Is there any simple way one can increase rate of mutations in plants? I'm talking about some method that anyone could easily do at home.I was thinking about heat shock,that is,treating seeds with heat shocks just before they germinate.I know there are fancy ways of doing this such as the use of mutagenic chemicals(EMS,DMS,sodium azide...) and radiation,but those are out of ordinary person's reach.The reason I thought heat shocks might work is because I found (maybe)mutant/chimera of a pursulane in my greenhouse,which is varieated(though this might be a result of viral infection).The plants in the greenhouse were exposed to extreme high temperatures by mistake. Another intresting thing I found is a varigated grass,and it was in the part of the yard in which a slug poison was used,metaldehyde,possibly showing that through metabolic pathways in the plant or other chmical reactions it might become a mutagen.So does anyone know,if heat shock or metaldehyde can cause mutations? And are there any methods to increase mutation rates that anyone can use at all?

Hello I'm new here and I have a question that I hope will be answered. I understand that many annual plants die after setting seeds even before first frosts.If we would to somehow make a plant unable to set seeds,say,for example making it triploid,would this effectively make it a sterile perennial plant that would just keep growing?