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mimzy

Acacia alpinaXphlebophylla thoughts

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I was pondering this today...

Hybrids of Acacia alpina and Acacia phlebophylla are known to occur in the Mount Buffalo region, but are always sterile. Phlebs are notoriously hard to propagate and keep alive, but have a great spice profile. I have never grown Acacia alpina, but given it is found across a wider ecological range than phlebophylla, I'm guessing its a hardier plant and perhaps easier to propagate. This raises a few questions...

(1) What is the spice profile of alpinaXphlebophylla? It seems at least possible to me that it could be present in significant quantities.

(2) Is the hybrid able to be cloned by tissue cultured? If the resulting hybrid is indeed a hardier plant than phlebophylla, then it may also be more receptive to tissue culture propagation.

Obviously entirely speculative and a lot of assumptions made. Would love to hear your thoughts :)

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i know lots of varieties of cognata are clonally propagated, the prostrate and weeping forms, and they even graft acacias into standard forms in the nursery these days. SO either grafting or cloning under specialist conditions should be viable presumably.

Acacia-Limelight-Std-010.jpg

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From what I've read, attempts at grafting phlebs (at least onto Acacia maidenii) have been largely unsuccessful. I need to look further at what people have done in terms of grafting techniques with Phlebs, but I'm thinking of some nice experiments to assess feasability. One potential problem with grafting (any technique) is that we might loose the spice content. Given that Phelbs are endangered and seed is hard to come by, Acacia alpina could be a nice model plant.

Additionally, I don't believe much is known about the spice profile of Acacia alpina itself. More food for thought.

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I dare to say that if the hybrid of the two were a hardier plant then obviously it would be much more abundant than it is. I have only ever seen the one and have looked specifically for them though im sure if i went futher more could be found. I was with a botanist at the time that takes an interest in acacia so im sure we werent mistaken as to the ID of the individual plant we found. Pictures in gallery somewhere here.

As for the alk profile of alpina, its something i have never put to the test yet considered many times, as like you, im curious to know as iam about many of the acacia family. Good question mimz and hopefully someone here can give some insight.

On the subject of acacia cuttings, i heard from a grower that using a weak solution of rooting hormone as a spray on hardwood cuttings was very effective though the sp is difficult to prop in any fashion and for a lazy SOB such as myself i leave the project to more dedicated folk.

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Wow this thread blew up a little bit. In my opinion, subjective experience (such as that of whoami's source) has its place in developing hypotheses for further research... but that's about it. Unfortunately we are all prone to subconscious biases that make self-report an unreliable source of evidence. This is particularly evident when we see two people disagree about their subjective experiences with a drug... when one person says it was the wildest trip ever and the other a dud trip, who do we believe? We need hard quantitative data to make generalised statements about spice content in plants, anything else is speculation. Quantitative data is not without its own problems though, there are a multitude of variables that can affect spice content (season, type of plant tissue, analysis method... just to name a few). In fact, a systematic review of all quantitative data on spice content may be warranted... I may spend some time on this.

 

 

My only comment on this hippy thing is this; Australian acacia species offer a uniquely home grown ayahuasca experience. For me they represent a medium through which I can connect to this land on some deeper level… that might be lost with other foreign brews. This is my subjective experience, and not helpful :)

 

 

Back to my original questions:

 

 

PD - some reasons that phlebxalpina hybrids may not be more prevalent in the environment could be (1) successful hybridisation is an uncommon natural event, despite cross-pollination or (2) phlebs are confined to buffalo mountain, making cross-pollination a rare event. A hand pollination experiment could be useful here.

 

 

If anyone wants to volunteer some phleb/alpina seeds I'd happily do the hard yards on this one :)

 

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Time to bump this one. All the resources I need to give this cross a go are in place; time, greenhouse, lab, etc. If anyone has any Acacia alpina seed that they are prepared to donate or trade with me please let me know, as I would love to get them propagated at the same time as the Phlebs. Cheers.

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I have been told that tissue culture on acacia is the 'holy grail' of the industry in Australia. It is currently not in practice as they are far too stubborn and simply refuse to propagate this way.

I got this information at a job interview 6 months ago at a tissue culture lab. We had a lengthy chat about acacia propagation and they stated one of the main reasons they called me in for a chat was cause I had propagated floribunda by cuttings.

IF SOMEONE KNOWS HOW TO PROPAGATE ACACIA BY TISSUE CULTURE PLEASE DO LET ME KNOW!

Anyway, on the actual topic.

It has been stated that acacia phlebophylla's spice content on growth since fires some years ago is minimal. And as always anybody thinking of using this plant as a means for extraction has less than half a wit about them, whether you've grown it yourself from seed or not first priority should always be propagation when pruning an established buffalo wattle. This means dissolving indole-3-butyric acid in acitone dipping freshly cut ends in for a couple of seconds, allowing to air dry for 30seconds to a minute before planting. And yes I know this all sounds like a lot of effort and very little fun but this is the role we play on earth when we're blessed with thumbs.

Apologies for going a bit everywhere on this topic, this is the first time I've wrote about phlebophylla so the necessities had to be stated.

Now as for hybridizing I'm thinking if desirable traits are dominant this plant could be a cool commercial ornamental plant, taking attention away from phleb would probably only help.

I shall source some alpina seeds and do a give away shortly, to people who have phleb and can practice your idea.

BTW I'd love to see a phlebophylla x obtusifolia(barrington tops) - the leaves on the resulting plant would be mammoth like!

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Wow, Has anyone gone through with doing this?
I am quite interested and i am keen to experiment grafting

Big love

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I have been told that tissue culture on acacia is the 'holy grail' of the industry in Australia. It is currently not in practice as they are far too stubborn and simply refuse to propagate this way.

I got this information at a job interview 6 months ago at a tissue culture lab. We had a lengthy chat about acacia propagation and they stated one of the main reasons they called me in for a chat was cause I had propagated floribunda by cuttings.

IF SOMEONE KNOWS HOW TO PROPAGATE ACACIA BY TISSUE CULTURE PLEASE DO LET ME KNOW!

Are you sure? Are you sure you're sure? Heaps of Australian Acacia species are piss easy to do via TC. Maidenii, acuminata, floribunda and I think obtusifolia. No wuckas

Phlebs, in my own experience and that of another lab, are not easy. I've never seen them done in TC. That doesn't mean it's not possible, it just means no-one's found a way. You could be the one to find it. It happens

Are you sure your interviewer wasn't speaking of a particular Acacia species, cultivar or variety? Or via a particular TC route such as somatic embryogenesis instead of axillary culture?

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Hahaha the Questions have begun! :)
I would like to know hahaha

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I did one test on Alpina phyllodes years ago and it came up negative.

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I'm still acquiring the materials for this experiment, still a long way off too. I have phleb seedlings grown from seed gifted by a member here. Alpina seed/plant/pollen is proving much harder to acquire as fewer people are interested in it (see folias comment).

I've only done rudimentary TC with using MS media, so I can't comment on holographic's claims. Would love to here about your experiences with Phleb TC Darklight.

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Are you sure? Are you sure you're sure?

Nope. :)

I'm just going of what they said, and now I'm going off what you've said.

I would be fascinated in delving into this approach of propagating Acacias.

I would not be surprised in the slightest, if the variations of cognata available commercially were all done by TC.

Still trying to source some alpina seeds, I may have to collect a few myself.

Anyone know when alpina are in seed?

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