polyploid hardy clones?

[Apoplast]

Hi all - While I'm thinking about cold hardy strains of species, I began to ponder the wide variety of Dionaea mutants out there. I should preface this by saying that I haven't delved into VFT varieties much. Has anyone karyotyped a range of VFT clones? Do people use colchicine to mutate VFT seeds or in tissue culture?

I ask because, and follow me here, given the massive number of VFT mutants that are produced, it seems possible that some may be polyploid. Ployploids can exhibit greater hardiness. Therefore, somewhere out there, there might be a rather cold hardy VFT clone that remains to be discovered.

I feel like given the potential for profit from selling a cold hardy clone that could be grown outdoors further north, this has probably been done and not been successful. But I thought it couldn't hurt to ask if anyone knows for sure. So anyone know about polyploidy and hardiness in VFT mutants?

[coline]

This could be a great news for us the tropical growers also, that the plants could be hardy to tropical conditions also, but until now I've not seen any reports of the procedure?

[John Brittnacher]

VFTs can survive being frozen solid as long as they are fully dormant. I don't know the lowest temperature they can survive but it is at least a soil temperature in the low 20's F for a week. I have had that happen to mine multiple times and they were OK. But hit them with a serious frost when they are coming out of dormancy and they are toast. I had that happen too.

I don't see how polyploidy per se is going to affect cold temperature survival when the problem is early and late frosts. You would need to have a variety that goes dormant earlier and stays dormant longer. Also what is your evidence that autopolyploids are hardier in this sense? Autopolyploids are generally just larger plants. Allopolyloids by combining features of two species or disrupting the tradeoffs each has evolved can be adapted to different environments than either parent. There is no chance of that with Dionaea since there is only one species.

[Apoplast]

Hi John - Thanks for the response. The 20's F (-6 to -1 C) are not temperatures I would consider terribly cold. I'd place frozen solid as months of temperatures below freezing. I'd place surviving a few days of freezing weather as semi-cold hardy.

I realize that Dionaea consists of only one species. And while allopolyploids which include a species with some of the desired characteristics make selecting for that trait easier and more likely, all plant polyploids, both auto- and allo- are associated with cold environments at high altitudes and latitudes. Though 75% of angiosperm polyploids are allopolyploids, this still suggests that autopolyploidy may also contribute to not only larger flowers, and more robust plants, but additionally cold hardiness. Thus, I maintain it may be worth checking as to whether there are more cold hardy strains of VFT's out there, and whether they are polyploids. Because polyploidy, even auto, can alter dormancy cues in plants, there may also be clones out there that can resolve your concerns with late frosts too.

So, I reiterate; has any one out there done a systematic test for differences in cold hardiness in VFT clones? Or karyotyping of a large number of clones?

[marcel]

Not real tests, though you might call it "field trial". My VFT's (standard, not mutated/mutilated form)have been growing outside in The Netherlands for years now. So far the have survived twice frosts lower than -10 C (record low minus 18) and -1 to -5 each of the less cold years.
The seem to do fine in an artificial bog, but don't try it in pots or with cultivars. I had some red forms and none of those made it through a regular winter while the normal form survived just fine.

[Jason Ksepka]

Apoplast....i'm very curious of your statement about all allo/autoploids being associated with cold climates? I can think of one very famous polyploid... Wheat, which is a combination of multiple allo and autopolyploids, some up to 16x ploidy. Wheat was developed in the middle east in current day Iraq. By your statements on what qualifies as hardy, this alone hardly fits the bill. Many tropical examples exist as well. I have to agree with John, ploidy has nothing to do with cold hardiness. Cold hardiness is derived from adaptation by the parent lineages over time. Polyploidy may be a part of that long-term survival, but not as it relates directly to cold hardiness.

[Apoplast]

Hi Marcel - Sounds like in your experience cultivars tend to be less hardy. Interesting. Thanks for sharing your experience!

Hi Jason - I should not have said "all polyploids", but rather both types of polyploids. Yes, there are many tropical polyploids and I am well aware that wheat is a polyploid. As a side note winter wheat is pretty darn hardy. There is a correlation that plants are more likely to be polyploid at high latitudes and altitudes; i.e. cold environments. And while I realize that correlation does not mean causation, as Randall Munroe put it on the mouse-over from xkcd 552 "it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'." In short, there is a pattern that has been found in the primary literature which I thought might have caught more than just my attention, and seems worth exploring.

[ICPS-bob]

This is just a guess, but I wonder if the red forms that Marcel reports has low temperature/light dormancy trouble with might be at a disadvantage by anthocyanins reducing chlorophyll efficiency and reduced "energy" production during winter. That might be an interesting science experiment (if it has not already been done).

[Apoplast]

Hi Bob - That's an interesting hypothesis! I agree it seems as thought there is a lot of potential for experimentation here. Honestly, I had thought I would pose my original question and simply get an answer from people who had previously conducted experiments, or were familiar with them. However, I'm starting to suspect that this may not have been rigorously tested (thought I am holding out hope). But Marcel's input was very much appreciated, and provides great food for thought.

Anyone else out there notice any differences on cold hardiness between clones?

[purpman]

My vfts grow outdoors year round in Niagara Falls canada. They are pretty much frozen solid from mid December to mid march. Temps frequently dip to -15c even as low as -18c or -20c though thanks to global warming we seldom see temps that cold!

[Apoplast]

Hi Purpman - Thanks for sharing! Getting down to -15 to -20C, now we're getting colder. So it sounds like yours are hardy to zone 6a or 5b. Do you have them in the ground? Do you offer them any protections such as mulch or covering them in any way? Are they all typicals or do you have different mutants too?

Maybe I need to systematically test this when I have the space and cash to do it. For now, I think I'll be focusing on messing around with freeze tolerance on Aldrovanda turions.

[kby]

Mar 25, 2013 19:53:26 GMT Apoplast said:

…For now, I think I'll be focusing on messing around with freeze tolerance on Aldrovanda turions.

…or how about going the other way get getting a D. linearis those of us who don't live in the frozen north can grow .-kby

[Apoplast]

Hi KBY - Nice! You guys in warm climates can already grow almost everything. It's nice to know there are at least a few plants that are the exclusive domain of those of us who struggle to grow so many plants. Can you sense my jealousy?

[coline]

Well I have in my house a canadian oak tree living for more than 10 years and some dionaea that have 5 years with no dormancies never at all, everyone of them extremely fine. No flowers though, same with the sarracenias but extremely good health.


Also, I found something reffering to the hardiness of a plant from being or not polyploid (or at least with few chromosomes):
www.pinguicula.org/pages/pages_principales/theory.htm

[purpman]

Apoplast

Yes we are in zone 6b. That's the name of my blog where I document my outdoor growing of sarracenia, dionaea, and the odd drosera species. You should find some interesting reading.

Www.zone6b.wordpress.com