Do cuttings have a "real age" or will they live forever?

[Quixote]

If you have a cutting of a Pachanoi, it might come from a plant that is many years old. That plant might also have started as a cutting of a previous plant, and so on.

So, the question is: Do these cacti "remember" how old they are?

Or is a 3-year plant that grew from seed basically exactly the same inside as a cutting that is from an original plant that might be hundreds (thousands?) of years old?

For example, about flowering: If I plant a cutting from one of your old plants, will my new cutting flower more quickly than if I grew a new cactus from seed?

In humans, there's something called a "teleomere", which is a little bit of DNA that gets shorter and shorter every time our cells divide. Like a death clock that will run out.

As far as I know, cacti have no similar mechanism?

Are they immortal? As in being able to continue to grow if they get light, water and don't get sick?

Edited January 24, 2014 by Quixote

[Foo]

From what ive seen. A 3y.o seedling is very different from a cutting. I think a better comparison would a 50 Y.o seedling vs a cutting. I assume they would be more or less the same by that point.

Also, very interested to see what the clever folk have to say on this subject.

[GoOnThen]

Flowering must have a lot to do with the maturity of a plant/cutting. I have seen number of times cuttings taken from old plant flower even if the cutting is small. I have had a Yowie flower when it was only about 40cm tall and Mike was only about a meter tall. I also have a big Pach that was a six foot cutting that has flowered every year. The first year it would have been lucky to even have roots. What surprised me was it has flowered from pups that have grown since i have had it but the pups were from up the column a bit not from the base.

In habitat a big column will eventually fall over or the tip will snap off and the piece that lands on the ground will often root and pup and so the cycle will continue. So in theory some of those habitat plants could be hundreds + years old.

I would also think that there is a lot more Trichs in there habitats that have come from Cuttings ( plant material ) than from seed. This is only a logical thought without any research on a Friday night.

Edited on my computer because I really suck at typing on my phone and I hadn't finished.

Cheers

Got

Edited January 24, 2014 by GoOnThen

[Philocacti]

We had a similar discussion a few years back at the nook

http://www.thenook.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=71394&st=0&p=760065&hl=lifespan&fromsearch=1entry760065

EG I know you don't like posting links to other message boards, but since were all here to learn, I hope it's acceptable

[Kykeion]

Philo, I like how your link to the nook, was to a thread originally started with a link to a thread back here at SAB.

[Philocacti]

Hahahahahahah so true :D

[Dreamwalker.]

Telomeres, are the nucleoprotein complexes that physically cap and protect the ends of eukaryotic chromosomes.........

this link may be of use......................

http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-0-387-70869-0_7

"Most plant chromosomes terminate in an array of 7-bp DNA repeats (TTTAGGG). DNA-binding proteins associate with this repeat to form a protective nucleoprotein cap termed the telomere......................................."

Its an interesting thought really.......how old can a cacti/plant be...........?..................in theory you could go to Chavin de Huantar grab a san pedro cutting from the temple grounds ..........and it could be the actual plant used in ritual ~ 500 years or more ago.........................a nice sense of spirit continuity..........

I have read about the Stenocereus of Mexico ..............they have a cherished fruit and the gardeners have been selecting and sharing cuttings for 1000's of years (as gardeners do) as a consequence they have 10's of 1000's of cultivators, some 1000's of year's old .......................as European's have with apples or plums................which as they are propagated from scion stock ......so could also be 100's or 1000's of years old.......some European varieties of grapes represent clones that have been propagated for over two millennia..............

a clone has the exact same genetic age as its parent..........................Each mitosis causes the telomeres to shrink. When they are gone, no more cell division is possible, and death ensues...................this is cellular senescence..........human somatic cells will divide ~70 times (Hayflick limit).........germ and cancer cells of course have telomerase to extend the telomere .............

and telomerase activity are abundant in shoot apical meristems ........so in theory like cancer they/cacti could live forever..................

Cuttings have a higher rate of genes mutations..............not always a negative, but can weaken a plant..

Here's an interesting clip......"Scientists have sequenced the genome of the world's oldest continuously surviving cancer, ." lesson there is inter-species sex is not recommended..........

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-01-year-old-dog-cancer-reveals-secrets.html

Cuttings taken from the tops of old stem cactus like stenocereus (which tend to be almost thornless up there) tend to maintain an almost thornless nature......(so I've read)

Edited October 11, 2014 by Dreamwalker.

[Snowfella]

From memory I've read somewhere that mature cuttings of Pachycereus militaris revert back to an immature state once they have been re-rooted.

As for long living, I've got photos of a Cereus that's growing away in a Botanical garden over in Sweden....entered into their collection back in 1710...so 300 odd years ago of known cultivation of that one.

[prier]

There are many cacti with very different immature spines compared to mature spines. Tricho. Pasacana comes to mind. When you root a mature cutting it nearly always reverts back to immature spine. Dunno if this adds anything to the conversation, just a couple of cents