Internet Fargesia seed & plants

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johnw
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Location: HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA

Re: Internet Fargesia seed & plants

Post by johnw »

I'd guess it would require much more than inserting a hardiness gene. Would you not have to tweek the leaf texture and culm structure to withstand both cold and snowload? I guess it would be like inserting a hardiness gene in a Chinese fan palm, still going to get smashed to bits by a good old wet snow-ice event.

Chris - a nagging question I've had for years is how bamboos evolve efficiently as so many flower at such long intervals. Does this not put them at a distinct disadvantage or rather to say much slower responding to natural selection as opposed to other plants that flower annually?
johnw coastal Nova Scotia
Nicholas
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Re: Internet Fargesia seed & plants

Post by Nicholas »

Tarzanus wrote:
if you add probability to make super-hardy seedling into equation, you might want to play lottery instead. With a lot of effort, a lot of invested time and money, I'm sure it's more than possible to create superior bamboo seedlings without using genetic modifications, but I doubt it could be done without enormous available resources.
Here is where economies of scale come in to play. Going from TC to single flowers is indeed problematic. However If you can get reasonably sized bamboos to flower even a medium sized setup should probably yield thousands if not millions of seeds. If I can harvest 10 million seeds a 10% survival rate still means I have 1 Million seedlings so I have a high chance (50%) of hitting that 1 in a million mutation. And this is without considering the possibility to try and hybridize species which I think would greatly improve the chance of finding something interesting.

@John

I was actually thinking about that yesterday as well. It would be interesting if seedlings showed a stronger variance in characteristics to compensate for this.
The other factor would be how likely it is for the meristem to mutate. Isn't Arundo Donax sterile yet quite successful?
Tarzanus
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Re: Internet Fargesia seed & plants

Post by Tarzanus »

"Taking Fargesia cold resistance genes for example and placing them into large tropical clumper would theoretically make it possible to grow tropical giants in northern hemisphere."

Good points, many nearly hardy Phyllos - aureosulcata, nuda, Beijing, atro, etc., - with leaf hardiness to -22c instead of -17c would make a tremendous difference for many of us. Now consider Brad's experience with nitida - he had losses to the ground at temperatures that it takes in its stride here. Is it his summer heat that alters nitida's cold tolerances in winter? Then would Fargesia genes if inserted into the aforementioned Fargesias to impart another few degrees of hardiness be useless for those with hot summers. I fear that might be the case and more complex than we think.

From 2003 until 2013 I probably could have successfully grown vivax here but it would have been smashed to the ground by our heavy wet snows several times per year.

We can dream that one day all will be solved.
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