continuous cloning of plants/trees

[pippo]

People,

 

Wondering what your advice would be on this- say you have a tomato plant, and snip off a tip of it (5-6"), and add rooting hormone, plant carefully, and wait until it grows/takes on roots pretty well. Of course, it should produce the same tomatoes, one would assume. But say you repeat this again, say, when the new plant reaches a good height of about 2-3', and starts to wither again, at which time you snip off , again, another 5-6" of plant tip to start growth again.

 

Of course, you again, would expect tomato fruit. Can this continue forever? I heard this can lead to genetic bottlenecking (which I think means concentration of defective genes.........) I cant understand if so, why would it lead to bottlenecking, when the plant did not "breed" with another.....LOL

 

Seriously, maybe it has to do with the flowering of the fruit- and bees??

 

Thanks

[StringJunky]

I'm no expert on this but as I understand it the cloned plants are not 'new' or young plants but are actually the parent plant and is therefore subject to all the vagaries of age that the Mother plant would have if it was still alive ie eventual chromosome deterioration through multiple cell divisions...the total number of cellular replications is limited before chromosome defects start to occur. If a tomato plant is one year old when it is cloned the clone plants are also 1 year old genetically.

 

You are also placing additional stresses on an ageing clone plant by forcing it to make new roots every time...from a gardener's perspective the quality of the produce will eventually suffer.

Edited April 30, 2011 by StringJunky

[lemur]

I think what the OP is describing is propagation, not cloning, though what would the difference be with cloning since cloning also relies on the propagation of existing DNA, right?

[StringJunky]

Propagation is all of the methods that something can be multiplied with and cloning is one method of that. You've probably read some where that this method is also called 'vegetative propagation' so that's why you think that.

 

http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/life/genetic/cloning1.htm

 

Some plants have 'immortal cells' in the meristem...I wonder, if these were extracted, continuous viable replication of plants is achieved? There's a bit here about the Cox's Orange apple which has been around in its original form since 1825 but this is done by grafting the original apical meristem cells that Robert Cox bred on to hosts. Could this be done without using a host?

 

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ikRlsIIuZoQC&pg=PA40&lpg=PA40&dq=immortal+cells+meristem&source=bl&ots=yM2j9hQZgA&sig=4-q45omeDcDWFnfagutpqQSBYP0&hl=en&ei=oBS8TYvQBYKIhQeJzo3HBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=immortal%20cells%20meristem&f=false

Edited April 30, 2011 by StringJunky

[pippo]

I'm no expert on this but as I understand it the cloned plants are not 'new' or young plants but are actually the parent plant and is therefore subject to all the vagaries of age that the Mother plant would have if it was still alive ie eventual chromosome deterioration through multiple cell divisions...the total number of cellular replications is limited before chromosome defects start to occur. If a tomato plant is one year old when it is cloned the clone plants are also 1 year old genetically.

 

You are also placing additional stresses on an ageing clone plant by forcing it to make new roots every time...from a gardener's perspective the quality of the produce will eventually suffer.

 

Right, string, my tomato IS getting weaker, even though I "cloned" it. I will see just how far I can push it though. Its still making tomatoes biut no where near as vigorous as the first plant....

 

I think what the OP is describing is propagation, not cloning, though what would the difference be with cloning since cloning also relies on the propagation of existing DNA, right?

 

OK, fair enough. Guess Im propagating it by the clone technique?? It for sure not a graft (another method of propagation).......

[pippo]

I may have picked the last of the cherry tomatoes from this plant today. On its last leg.....

[Larix]

Plants respond to changes in their environment. Has everthing remained the same since your first rooting? Light duration, water, nutrition, temperature; if any of these change could it trigger a dormancy?

I may have picked the last of the cherry tomatoes from this plant today. On its last leg.....

[pippo]

Plants respond to changes in their environment. Has everthing remained the same since your first rooting? Light duration, water, nutrition, temperature; if any of these change could it trigger a dormancy?

 

Well, cant reproduce everything 100%, you know- Ive been taking care of it the same way, basically. Thats all I can say. No more tomatoes on it now. I think its almost dead.....have seeds though. Time to start a new, eh?