Secret Project.........

Nigel

Nigel

Ok, not so secret, really. actually not secret at all!
 
These are TSMB seeds. There are roughly 125 of them, soaked for 2 days in water. They are now sat in tissue paper in 5 lots of around 25 or so. Each lot has a different concentration of Colchicine in the tissue paper. 0.05%, 0.1%, 0.25%, 0.5%, 1.0%. 
 
Colchicine binds to microtubules and prevents meiosis/mitosis, so in a small percentage of seeds you end up with polyploids. Normally these seeds (and the plants) are diploid, which means 2 copies of each chromosome (24 total). Tetraploid is double, hexaploid is triple and octoploid quadruple the number of chromosomes. 
 
Why the hell would you want those? Usually, tetraploid plants are larger, more robust, grow faster and produce more metabolites. In the case of Cannabis, tetraploid plants produce 30-50% more THC. Many Solanaea like to be tetraploid (potatoes love it) and have been selected for this trait over many years, so this is a naturally occurring process, albeit at a very small percentage. 
 
We`ll see what happens. 
 
 
 
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Good luck! Whenever a seedling pops out with extra cotyledons I always hope it'll turn out polyploid.
 
Are you basing this on any specific previous experiments? What are you going to be looking for as a marker of polyploidy?
 
This is very interesting. I have never heard of polyploids but can't wait to see what shakes out. My girlfriends Dad suffers from gout, I foresee his medication going missing in the near future. What lead you to those concentrations of colchicine?
 
Nice One Nigel! Do you have facilities to caryotype a large/strong plant?
This is going to be so awesome.
Have you heard of others using colchicine on whole seeds? I thought it was normally done on cell cultures.
 
Dear Dr. Nigel Monsanto Carter:
 
Are polyploids anything like hemmorrhoids?  If so, why would you choose to go there?
I have a slightly used doughnut cushion should you find the need for one in the near future.
 
Yours truly,
David
 
Ok, where to start. 
 
Avocados - yes, probably. It would take so long to find out that your Grandchildren may or may not be eating football-sized Avocados. Annuals are perfect for this because they are, errr, annual. 
 
Has it been done with peppers before? Yes, in 1939. That`s the first reference I can find, anyway. It has been done quite a lot with C.annuum successfully. I can`t find anyone who has done it with another Capsicum species. 
 
How did I arrive at those concentrations? I read 50+ publications to see what the trends were and picked concentrations spanning what others had been successful with for many types of plants, not just peppers.
 
In many cases, the colchicine will kill a large portion of the seeds and they will not germinate. That effect will be concentration dependent. Usually, polyploid seedlings look odd and can grow faster. I`ll take a chunk of each plant and take it to a lab for karyotyping (counting the number of chromosomes). Yes, I have access to a Lab to do this. 
 
Tetraploid (or whichever) plants produce tetraploid seeds, normally. Yes, I`d try to clone any plant that had polyploidy of some sort.
 
Yes, possibly a lot hotter. In most cases where plants produce useful metabolites (not just Cannabis), Tetraploids produce a significant amount more. 
 
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Ever wondered how you can grow seedless watermelon? Where do the seeds come from if they are seedless?
 
If you cross a diploid watermelon with a tetraploid watermelon, you get a triploid seed. The triploid seed is fertile, but it will not allow the production of seeds it its fruit. So every year, the breeders cross diploid with tetraploid and the growers buy the seeds.
cone9 said:
Dear Dr. Nigel Monsanto Carter:
 
Are polyploids anything like hemmorrhoids?  If so, why would you choose to go there?
I have a slightly used doughnut cushion should you find the need for one in the near future.
 
Yours truly,
David
Click to expand...
Hey now, less of the Monsanto. All I`m doing is pushing the equilibrium in my favor by using a lethal toxin. Oh, wait a minute.............
 
The slightly used doughnut may well be something i`ll need when the first fruit have been eaten. I`ll PM you when i need it!
 
At this point, I just want to see what happens, if anything. I am not trying to generate the next hottest thing, as I just don`t care about that. Apple-sized Morugas, though, would be great fun!!!
 
Great Nigel,   Hope you get a lot of sprouts, colchicine is really hard on seeds, keep an eye open for larger leaves and faster growth.
I'm all excited and can't wait to see your first triploid plants I can just see a 10 ft tall TSMoruga with hundreds of Baseball sized pods
After their grown I would take a pod sample and test to see how much colchicine is in the pod,
that was a main worry of pot growers, that to much colchicine would be in the leaves making the plant to toxic to use. if you don't get any sprouts I would spout some seeds,  then use surflan to induce mutations, you might have better luck that way.
Good luck with your not so secret grow.
 
Very cool Nigel, great project. Wow, learn something new everyday, right?
 
Looking forward to seeing the results, good luck!

 
 
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