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Will all the radiation thats just been leaked in the world cause our cacti to crest and monstrate?

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will all the radiation thats just been leaked in the world cause our cacti to crest and monstrate?

or become varigated ... or at least have a better chance now?

:innocent_n:

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For those that are interested in crested/monstrose cacti.... allowing your cacti to get damaged by very high temps cause this to occur. It is by no mean is an exact science but there seems to be around 6-7% rate of mutation in affected cacti. This has been noted by a few people and even published recently in an article in Cactus & Succulent Journal.

I have had a high rate of crested cacti recently and have associated it with light damage and the article seems to confirm my theory. The author of the article mentions temperatures ranging from 40-45 °C (104-113 °F).

There are ways to induce variegated plants however not always 'safe' to due to without precautions.

Copiapoa tenuissima forma mostruosa has been obtained by many people from normal plants that have been thermally damaged.

Edited by modern.shaman
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Is there some minimum length of exposure or is it just in fresh seed sprouts or something?

My cacti are under direct sun in 40-43 °C temps daily for at least a week a year, 3 cm seedlings included, and with the understandable exception of the nitrogen blood lines I've never had a cactus go crest/monster. I certainly have enough to make a 6% mutation rate be noticed.

Is it time to torture more baby cacti? :devil:

Ninja, what radiation was just released?

I dont watch TV and the talk in my sex chat didnt turn 'hot' in that way :P

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This maybe limited to certain species that have less 'protection' or are not adapted to the conditions (from indoors to outdoors during summer peak).

The grower that published his observations mentioned that it was the damage was caused by the heat rather than direct solar irradiation. He left his cacti covered by plastic and shade cloth which limited ventilation raising the temperature of his greenhouse. He even mentions that most of his cacti are actually lacking sunlight causing unshapely appearance with some cacti. Seems like the duration of the high temps is during the entire season.

"a number of observations are summarized, which can be interpreted as the effect of too hot growing conditions (too high temperatures in the greenhouse). Fasciation, variegation and other growth anomalies were observed in so diverse genera as Ariocarpus, Astrophytum, Eriosyce, Gymnocalycium, Mammillaria, Parodia and Rebutia."

This was not a direct attempt to achieving these results but rather an observation of the effect of thermal damage so durations and ages where not provided but seems to be 'mature' cacti.

I have recently had an increase in crested/variegated trichocereus (not nitrogen crosses) which I left my seedling try in full sun and 85-90+ temps. Most have been died perhaps due to excess stress at such a young age. There has also been 4 crested aztekium ritteri from 4 random seeds not showing any traits. I do leave all my grafts and seeds in high sunlight causing most to stall for a while and take on a purple hue. A specific clone is nearly black (not sure if just excess light) and also has a high frequency of crested pups.

I keep circling this topic and have way too many experiments in the works trying to find a protocol to inducing these traits. I leave my seedlings in the most extreme conditions I can provide like not treating pests, high sunlight, limiting water and will experiment with some chemicals in spring.

Edited by modern.shaman
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The UVb radiation that's been hitting places like AUS harder because of the ozone hole does indeed effect plants, but you're going to see more of things like DNA damage in plants. There are several studies that touch on this such as:

http://m.pnas.org/content/96/26/15310.short

DNA damage leads to different issues, but one of particular interest to us cacti growers is retardation of growth. If the issue of UVb gets worse down under, you very well may start noticing the effects on your little ones.

I'm not aware of UVb causing any sort of mutation, but I think I've seen something about UVa being able to cause abnormalities in different plants. Although for UVa to make it's way to the your plants there would have to be absolutely no ozone left above you. If that happens you got some more serious issues to worry about than crests ^^

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Ninja, what radiation was just released?

thats pretty damn funny auxin, considering you're just a few miles downstream from one of the biggest nuclear 'leakers' in the western hemisphere... :wink:

The site contains "53 million gallons of high level radioactive hazardous waste, equivalent to 2,650 rail cars full of waste,"according to the xxx state Dept of Ecology, making it the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States. Or, as Heart of America Northwest calls it, “the most contaminated site in the Western Hemisphere.”

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Ah, I see, so by 'just' he meant over the last four generations?

You still count the internal combustion engine as a fad dont you? :P

I expect contamination by organic compounds to promote more mutagenesis than radiation from leaky nuke plants.

(Unless your immediately downstream, but even then its no assurance... 15 years and I'm still waiting on my third nipple to grow in)

Edited by Auxin
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Now this has completely changed my opinion on using radioactive materials! I don't want my cacti going all crested and disgusting!! Something has to be done about this!!

Edited by Tangich
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Damn Radioctives! Dey took or Jewbz!

Edited by Evil Genius
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x]

I had fukushima in mind and wondered how dangerous it would be to order seed from tokyo ..

and yes the last few generations as "just"

like all the nuke tests too n anything contributing ...

globally, even if anyone recalls chernobyl perhaps affecting cacti

(i had probably just learned to crawl when chernobyl went off i thnk)

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With the exception of incidents like chernobyl and fukushima, wouldnt chemical fertilizer dose our cacti with more radionuclides than the radioactive effluvium from hanford or the hydrogen bomb testing from the 50's?

I have some uranium ore, I could put some in a petri dish set atop a seed sprouting pot except I sprout seeds in my bedroom and I wouldnt want uranium by my head 8 hours a day. I might turn psychic and my own thoughts are disturbing enough, I dont want to have to know other peoples thoughts as well :wink:

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hehehe,... the topic of torturing our cacti has come up again. Possibly my favorite topic......... yeb there is an article out there and on SAB where cacti were exposed to all kinds of extremes of light and freezing........ even talk of gathering americanium out of smoke detectors and exposing the seeds to it etc etc....... haha,..... injecting americanium in cacti ...... < that just occurred to me .........

:D

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Really interesting post. It seems easy enough to test.

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"hey Doc, dont mind that wad of cactus seed in my mouth next to the tooth you are X-raying. I'm running an experiment"

damn, and i gotta go see the dentist today.....

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Ethnoguy85 exposed some seeds to X-rays or some kind of medical radiation. I don't recall the results though...

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There is other thing which MIGHT be occurring in the observation mentioned. It is increasingly suspected that monstrose and cristate growth might involve an endophyte or some sort of a minor pathogenic inhabitant such as a phytoplasm or one of the rusts. HIgh heat could be causing tissue damage or otherwise contributing to an increased susceptibility. It would be interesting to know if the person reporting that had any monstrose or cristate plants before that and what they were.

Monstrose and cristates do show up in large seed plantings as an occasional seedling even with no contribution from high heat.

Some years ago I noticed that the botanical gardens which like to collect monstrose cacti tend to have them show up on other cacti in their collection.

I look forward to seeing how this unfolds.

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thanks Trucha,

actually my first ever tricho crest rapidly developed a krillion red tiny dots like some sorta creatures in a few days after it arriving...

these tiny red dots got me worried so I showered them off the crest in the shower and they have never re-appeared

I wonder if i just washed all the crest dust away that I could perhaps have introduced to some other cacti...

if I see it again I'll try collect some and see if I can infect a reg bridgesii as a test subject :P

since rust is about the closest thing I've heard to describe the red dots ... I hope that's what you mean by rust :)

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Tiny red dots on cacti are often spider mites and are well worth washing off promptly.

Rusts are a strange group of fungus. For much of their live cycle they are invisible and look like small dark dots. During some points of life they can cause a covering that is sort of rusty in appearance.

The relatively few sorts which can cause morphological growth aberrations are the ones I'm referring to.

Check out what one of the rusts can do to an Acacia:

PDF:

http://www.largelyaccurateinformationmedia.com/LAIM/Huisache/Huisachillo.pdf

Slideshow:

http://www.largelyaccurateinformationmedia.com/LAIM/Huisache/Huisachillo/assets/player/KeynoteDHTMLPlayer.html

Monstrose production is not understood at present and there are a half dozen other plausible candidates besides rusts assuming a pathogenic angle proves to be real. Mycoplasmas are another possibility as they would remain invisible.

It is a fascinating area even if not yet understood.

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the tiny red things were more like dust that was stationary ... but thanks, I'm glad I rinsed them off now

just in case they all happened to be stationary from havn a good feed..

Thank you for the cool pointers and I look forward to learning all about them as much as possible :)

so maybe I'd have to put an ariocarpus fissuratus near a powerplant to unlock godzilla instead of red dust :innocent_n:

IMG_0461.jpg

godzilla-2.jpg

Edited by ☽Ţ ҉ĥϋηϠ₡яღ☯ॐ€ðяئॐ♡Pϟiℓℴϟℴ
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wow I need a Godzilla like that in my life...

got a 5th flower from mine this year right after bringing him in and the flower stayed open for more than a week!
im thinking not enough energy to close cause it finally closed after going back outside for a day in spite of several attempts to pollinate
b4 that.. givem plenty of sun and they'll make flowers instead of collecting comet dust :D

that ones ready to do some major bloomage I can tell by the pubes

Edited by Optimystic
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