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Halcyon Daze

Are Tricho's ever self-fertile?

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Pretty straight forward question really.

 

I've always been led to believe Trichocereus are incapable of being fertilised by their own pollen, but I'm now wondering about the accuracy of this assumption. 

 

Is this considered to be an established fact, or am I just generalising?

 

Can anyone vouch for the accuracy of the widely-held assumption that: Tricho's are non self-fertile.

 

Has anyone had any experiences contrary to this belief.

 

Perhaps some species are self-fertile while others are not, etc.

 

I'd love to find out more about this if possible.

Edited by Halcyon Daze
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I was wondering the same thing!  I have a heap of flowers on a number of different plants this year coming but realised it's actually all the same clone.  No seeds for me??

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In my realm of expereinces, T. spachianus is self fertile and every other trich I've encountered that has flowered has proven to be self infertile.

 

 

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Cheers Zelly. I read that spach is an invasive weed in some parts of Africa. I guess fertilization has a big part to do with it. And a big part of the reason other Tricho' species are not invasive.

 

In all my years of gardening with trichos I've never tried to pollinate a flower with it's own pollen. 

 

 

I'm not sure what the mechanism is but I suspect it has something to do with the pods simply aborting and falling off, even if it's own pollen has met the ova cells in the ovary.

 

I wouldn't expect it to be completely impossible 100% of the time. Could still be possible to get some level of seed formation in very rare occasions,  but the offspring may turn out as runts. All speculation of course.

 

I wonder if some hybrids have the ability of self fertilization. Spach hybrids maybe.

 

Anyway. I'll do some testing when I get home from my trip.

 

Cheers for the info Zelly :)

Edited by Halcyon Daze
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Pollination is fascinating, like for example,

 

How does the tricho know the difference between its own pollen and pollen from another tricho?

 

After abit of pondering, I started connecting some dots which may or may not be related. So for fertilization to occur in animals, sperm needs to fuse with egg, but it’s not as simple as just putting a sperm and an egg together, the sperm must undergo a process termed “capacitation” whereby the biological fluids within the female reproductive tract trigger the sperm to change its motility, which allows for fertilization to occur. There is a lot of research being taken place, trying to work out how to trigger this “capacitation” in different animals, because it allows for successful IVF to occur.

 

So to bring this back to pollen and ovules, for plant fertilization to occur, the pollen cant swim to the ovule, because it doesn’t have a tail and isn’t in solution. Instead the pollen germinates on the stigma, then grows as a single cell down the stigma towards the ovule. So the question becomes, why doesn’t the pollen of a tricho germinate on itself? but can germinate on a flower of a different tricho?; and how can we trick the pollen to start germinating on itself. Perhaps there is a similar process for plant pollen, alike to capacitation in animals, which allows for fertilization to occur. And perhaps EGs lime concrete dusting tek could be triggering this process, Ive tried it a few times without success but it would be interesting to know more about.  

 

Its possible to germinate pollen invitro, which is often used to test for pollen viability. But knowing the pollen is viable and knowing the pollen will fertilize are to different things, because (1) viable pollen can be taken from a tricho and used to make a cross with a different tricho, but if left along wont self-fertilize and (2) you can take viable pollen from one species and cross pollinate it with another species and generally no hybrids species will result, unless you’re very lucky. Pollination is super complex and not well understood, great to think about tho, I feel like breakthroughs in pollination between different plant species is like putting evolution on steroids, stepping things up to the next level. Which gets me thinking about why have some plants evolved self fertility while others have maintained the need to hybridise, and why and at what point do plants genomes decide enough with hybridisation i want to be self fertile and maintain my current form rather then expand genetic complexity continuously?

 

 

Edited by Change
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4 hours ago, Change said:

 

How does the tricho know the difference between its own pollen and pollen from another tricho?

in a nutshell, by vibration and frequency.

 

 

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8 hours ago, zelly said:

in a nutshell, by vibration and frequency.

 

 

 

With Trichocereus I wouldn't doubt it at all :P

 

I did at least 1 assignment on it in 'Plant Physiology' (a long time ago) and it was quite complex. 

 

For a start there are numerous possible mechanisms that different plants may adopt, and which-one possibly hasn't yet been established in cacti and may be different for different species.

 

The correct term is 'Self-Incompatability' as opposed to 'Self-fertilisation' which are two very different things. 

 

A plant is basically able to block the path of fertilisation by it's own pollen by interfering at one or more of the various stages involved.

 

The way it recoginises it's own pollen is usually by matching proteins, (although in some cases it may be othe ways like hormones etc).

 

When the proteins match, there is a response that cuts one (or more) of the steps involved in fertilisation.

 

Tricho's probably have their own undiscovered mechanism utilising 'The Vibe'.

 

That's someone's PhD right there.

 

 

 

Edited by Halcyon Daze
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Ok well it seems to be quite well established in cacti.

 

Just downloaded a paper called 'Physiology and genetics of self-incompatibility in Echinopsis chamaecereus'

 

I've only read the abstract but it seems to be the disruption of pollen tube growth in the pistil. (They have one hellava pistil afterall)

 

So basically the sperm never even reaches the egg.

 

I shoulda just googled it to begin with:wacko:

 

I guess then that Eg's lime powder trick could actually work for this. I'll have to go back and read it again.

 

Very interesting :)

Edited by Halcyon Daze
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^ "lime powder trick" - gotta link?

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never had a flowering trich, so no expereice.  but i would sugest what we do in dragon fruit farms, which have similar flowers in that they are massive, night blooming and self sterile usually.  but they are not incompatable so much as the pollen realease and calyx receptivity are at different times.  i forgot the term for this but its well studied in this crop.  so that said hand pollinatoin is done on commercial farms.  we use dusting things, forgot the name.  those hand heald feather looking things people use to dust book cases etc.  use that and twirl it around the flower, go to the next.  with trcihs i would do it once open, then a couple more times throughout the night to make sure.  if its as simple as pollen/calyx timing issues, this will take care of that problem easily.  and if not, then i guess we know for sure they aint self abled.

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7 hours ago, kadakuda said:

if its as simple as pollen/calyx timing issues, this will take care of that problem easily.  and if not, then i guess we know for sure they aint self abled.

to truly test for self fertile a person would have to isolate or cover the flower to prevent opening prior to all pollinating insects / bats etc  retiring for the evening and then covered back up after hand pollination to prevent any further pollination by insects.

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