Although I have applied surflan on live buds and did many different experiments, I’m intrested in applying the substance on seeds. Knowing how hard the seed coat is, do you think that a substance of surflan and water could penetrate to the embyro of a stratified seed? My idea is that the seed may have a weakened coat after stratification, and thus maybe the perfect time to treat attempt.
For those who wanted updates of my experiments, My Blanc Double de Courbert may not be a tetraploid after all, since all the crosses I have used it for as the pollen parent has aborted. But at least it is still alive and I am going to leave the wood alone until I have enough propogation material to pass around. I have not a microscope to test to see if it is a doubled shoot. And R. foliolosa treated shoot has remained very punny, and have buried it in dirt so it can root on its own.
Enrique
Would it be possible to mix the surflan in soil mix and air layer a new shoot. You could keep the treflan/surflan mix appllied to the roots as they formed. If they would root in treflan/surflan. I think roses would root ok in treflan/surflan and it would solve the problem of the treflan deteroiating in the sunlight. I am just asking, I am familar with treflan, but not using it to double chromosomes.
Chromosome doubling substances only work during mitosis, i.e., when the plant cells are actively dividing. The cells in the embryo are dormant until germination, so even if you could get the substance into the seed, it wouldn’t double the chromosomes. For the same reason, applying substances to leaves or other plant parts where cells aren’t actively dividing won’t result in chromosome doubling. To double chromosomes, the substance must reach plant parts with actively dividing cells, like the meristem tissue of shoot and root tips.
Jim is correct. Even in lilies, where the seed coat is thin and germination is faster and more uniform (in many cases), chromosome doubling has been done on newly germinated seedlings, not seeds. It has also been applied to various growing (dividing) tissues in adult plants.
Thanks for the info. But I have heard that the Gloriosa Daisy was a result of applying Colchicum on the seeds, and I’ve heard and read a few users of cannabis who got a few doubled plants after planting seeds that has been soaked in the water solution of a crushed colchicum bulb. Although I’m not saying that I believe in that, just saying that I’ve read a little bit of literature on the subject.
Soaking the seeds could work if the plant involved germinates quickly enough that the chemical is still around when it does. Roses are so slow that I suspect that any chemical would have diffused away long before germination. Another issue with roses is that the pericarp is so thick and tough that chemicals might not penetrate to the embryo at all. Since I’ve never tried it I can’t say what would and would not work, but the seedlings are definitely more exposed to treatment.