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The Corroboree
Evil Genius

Intergeneric Breeding with Electricity

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If you create a hybrid that no one else ever produced, you can surely name it. Its possible to reserve the rights for a certain type of hybrid but dont ask me how. Never bothered because its probably too expensive anyway.

When its about plants, everything is possible. But the more distant the relationship between two living beings is, the less likely is that you´ll be able to produce hybrids by intergeneric breeding. Simply because reproduction- and sexorgans are too diffrent. There are exceptions to this rule but you can

say that in case of very diffrent plants, you´ll probably wont have success when attempting a cross. In Nature, natural hybrids are created over thousands of years and over many generations of natural breeding. The cause for a successful intergeneric breeding in nature in case of very unrelated plants/animals can be due to a certain kind of genetical defect in one single individuum. That is sometimes enough to make it compatible with the rest of the gen-pool. Things like this happen by accident so sometimes, it takes a whole lot of failure to make a successful cross. But one thing is certain: Everything is thinkable. Question everything!

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Cactus is a really unusual group of plants when it comes to hybridisation, they seem to hybridise across an incredibly wide range, whereas most other plants are limited to their own species. This is a great survival trait, probably developed under very harsh desert climate conditions, (although the rainforest cacti seem to behave in a similar fashion).

I have an Epiphyllum hybrid (unknown parentage) with enormous fat, leathery leaves/stems that has flowers that look like a cross between Epiphyllum and Rhipsalis. Unfortunately they invariable rot off before opening, so never producing seeds. Next time it flowers I will attempt a cross by opening the flower before it has time to rot off, in the hope that the female parts have had time to develop and be receptive to pollen, or it has produced pollen perhaps. The rotted flowers, upon dissection, don't look very well developed inside, though.

I did hear that many Epiphyllum hybrids were created by crossing Epi's with Trichocereus. Will be looking forward to trying that soon, as I have access to some species types.

Just one question, is Lobivia considered synonymous with Echinopsis? I did a cross/back cross between two incredibly different plants - a button Echinopsis and a columnar, spiny as hell Lobivia, and the seed obtained from both plants was extremely viable..

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I did hear that many Epiphyllum hybrids were created by crossing Epi's with Trichocereus. Will be looking forward to trying that soon, as I have access to some species types.

 

I tried something similar earlier this summer and cross polinated a Disocactus with an Echinopsis, it's resulted in a fruit that I'm still waiting on going ripe before I cut and check it for seeds. I'm rather confident that it wasn't a self pollination of the Disocactus as none of the flowers it had over summer other than the one I pollinated ended up producing a fruit.

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I think that this thread is awesome, it is inspiring how many people can contribute to an idea. As far as botany goes the way that botanists have grouped

plants into 'families' which started me thinking. I think that the families are way bigger then we understand. Would there be any benefit to applying a very small

electrical current to the female plant over a period of time to create a level of receptivity to this process? (0.3 - 0.7 of a volt at a time)

Edited by Joshie

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I've heard that bees use electromagnetic polarity to navigate among flowers. Flowers being positively (or is it negatively?) charged prior to a bee visit, then reverse-polarity for a while thereafter. I don't remember the source: Attenborough on TV? 

 

In any case ... 

 

Shouldn't DC polarity make a difference, or is it merely the flow of electrons through the plant that does the trick -- in which case, you wouldn't need a connection to "ground" per se, just any two points on the plant? Is the technique said to work for potted cactus, substituting potting media for true ground? Or only for in-ground specimens? Would touching terminals to root and branch (on a bare-rooted plant) yield the same result? Sometimes I use a DC source to heat the wires in my beekeeping frames -- if you left the terminals connected long enough, you'd presumably overheat the plant -- granted, cactus not being as conductive as metal? 

 

Who knows? (rhetorical question)

 

There is an interesting chapter on pioneering botanical experiments involving electricity, in The Invisible Rainbow --  http://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=93E30FBB4FC43B490B7EB477C0795C37  

 

 

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