Fortunately, this paper is available in full. This is a recent idea that you may want to try.
I would suggest treating fungus infected roses with aspirin and then using these particular roses in crosses.
Thank you for posting this link Henry. I wish I had a science background so that these papers would be an easier read for me. From what I’m gathering though this sounds like a very interesting idea.
Rob,
Not so long ago, this sort of discovery was denounced as heresy by those pushing the neo-mendelist dogma. In their view, traits acquired during the life of an organism could never, never, never be passed along to its progeny. No exceptions. It was a tenet of their faith that ALL heredity can be attributed to rigid nuggets of heredity called “genes”, which cannot change or be changed except by random mutation.
These same dogmatists preached against cytoplasmic inheritance, until evidence in favor of it became overwhelmingly obvious and easily duplicated. At that point the dogmatists abruptly changed sides and marched ahead as if they had been leading the parade all along.
Some years ago I read about a related phenomenon involving a mosaic virus affecting a narcissus, if I remember correctly. The infection appears on the leaf as a mosaic of dark and light green patches. Someone went to the trouble of isolating an “island” of dark (normal) cells and culturing it. I think a plant was regenerated from the tissue, but I won’t bet (since I can’t find the report). At any rate, the tissue (or plant?) was not only healthy, it resisted attempts to re-infect it with the virus.
Thank you for the posting Karl. Love the bit of history on dogmatists and the bit about the mosaic virus. All very interesting. I’m still making my way through the article.
Very interesting but Key words are:
…Whether priming can be inherited epigenetically from disease-exposed Arabidopsis remains unknown, even though it can be expected that transgenerational defense priming would provide benefits for short-generation plant species with limited ability to outlive disease outbreaks…
Pierre, your quote is from the introduction i.e. the why they are doing the research.
Apologies to Henry and all.
This paper is outstanding as real key words could be:
…Our study demonstrates that disease resistance can be carried forward to the next generation from plants exposed to fitness-reducing disease pressure. It indicates an epigenetic mechanism of disease protection, which could function as a plant memory of disease stress encountered in previous generations…
Someone went to the trouble of isolating an “island” of dark (normal) cells and culturing it. I think a plant was regenerated from the tissue, but I won’t bet (since I can’t find the report). At any rate, the tissue (or plant?) was not only healthy, it resisted attempts to re-infect it with the virus.
This would be a breeze to do with roses in a properly equipped lab. The tricky part would be identifying the resistant cells when no obvious variegation occurs as with, say, RRD.
There’s always a catch. But maybe it wouldn’t be necessary. Amzallag (1993) found that a 300 nmol salt solution sprayed on sorghum seedlings killed them. However, if the seedlings were pretreated with a 35-150 nmol solution, they acquired a tolerance for the stronger solution. Furthermore, the resistance was inherited by some of the seedlings.
In further study he found that the salt solution did not affect the plants uniformly. Tissues that were most affected could be distinguished from those less affected. Following the veins up the developing plants, he saw that the most affected tissues eventually produced smaller seeds. Theses seeds were the ones that gave the most salt-resistant seedlings.
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Heredity/King/Amzallag_biblio.html
I don’t know if this would be a fair analogy for RRD infection. If it is, then some of the seeds of RRD infected plants might yield more resistant seedlings.
Karl,
Is RRD passed on via seed?
Rob,
I didn’t know, so I looked it up.
“RRD is transmitted from plant to plant by an extremely small eriophyid mite (Phyllocoptes fructiplilus), which inhabits the shoot tips and leaf petal bases of roses. This mite introduces the causal agent of RRD into a rose as it feeds. The 4-legged mite is only about 200 microns long and 50 microns wide – small enough so 20 could lie side-by-side on a pinhead. The causal agent is also transmitted through grafting but apparently not through multiflora rose seed. Graft transmission tests have shown that the causal agent resides in the roots of multiflora rose, as well as other plant parts.”
This report goes on to say of the symptoms, “A brighter red to dark red mosaic pattern forms on the new leaves.”
This mosaic pattern might suggest that some cells have overcome the infection. Maybe. Let’s hope!
Karl
Really interesting stuff here. Thank you Karl.