Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 22:20:49 -0500 From: Matt Miller <nuclei@paonline.com> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg3419$foo@default> Subject: CP Breeding for Faster Growth.
Hello CPer's,
I am in a biology class right now in which we are using a
plant called "Fast Plants" for plant experiments. They are
simply a mustard plant that was bread at the University of
Wisconsin to increase its growth speed. The students at the
university took hundreds of seedlings of mustard plants and
grew them. The fastest growers were kept and the rest were
destroyed. Then the fast growing seedlings were raised,
cross bread, and had all of their seedlings grown. From this
batch the fastest growers were kept...... and so on and so
on for many generations until they had taken a mustard plant
with an average life cycle of 6 months (Life cycle being
from the time it sprouted to the time it sets seed) and
reduced it down to a total life cycle of 35 days.
Now for my question. Would it be possible to to this with
CP's to selectively breed them until clones were established
with greatly increased growth rates? Is anyone out there
currently experimenting or working with this concept? If not
it seems that for plants such as the VTF an increased growth
rate would really help with commercial availability, let
alone what it could do for some of the very slow growers
such as nepenthes, heliamphora, or cephalotus.
Carnivorous plants by nature grow slowly due to their lack
of soil nutrients. Most have around a 5 year life cycle. No
this couldn't be reduced down to months but it may be
possible to knock a couple years off and make them mature
faster.
Any additional ideas on this concept would be greatly
appreciated.
Thank you very much,
Matt
Miller
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