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Post by hortusbrambonii on Sept 23, 2013 5:55:38 GMT -5
I noticed some years ago that the sunflowers planted by the city of Antwerp always give no or empty seeds. Today I checked and I saw the same: some heads give no seed and die before the seeds grow, other heads do form seeds but they give empty seeds.
I suppose this is some kind sterile F1 hybrid (with pollen sterility?). How does this work genetically?
And why do people want to have a suicide race of sunflowers? Commercial monopoly? Or don't they want the birds to have food?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Sept 23, 2013 9:07:04 GMT -5
The technical term is "cytoplasmic male sterility". It is a trait of the mother plant, (something in the DNA of the mitochondria or one of the other organelles) which causes all her descendants to fail to produce pollen.
The plants could still produce seeds if they were pollinated by wild sunflowers.
Planting sunflowers that don't produce pollen is anti-allergenic, so the city isn't harming people with sunflower allergies. Also if there is little natural pollen and the plants don't produce seeds, then that eliminates a weed problem next growing season. And the seed company gets to sell fresh seed to the city each year.
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Post by hortusbrambonii on Sept 23, 2013 15:34:16 GMT -5
So they are only sterile for the male part, and not for the female part? So it's an F1 with the sterile plant as the mother and another race with pollen as the father?
We don't have wild sunflowers over here, but planting some 'regular' sunflowers in them would help them to produce seed then?
I might be conservative, but it still feels like an abomination against nature to me...
And a way to make money for the seed company... And an easy way for F1 hybrid race seed to be created I suppose...
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Post by diane on Sept 23, 2013 16:15:17 GMT -5
Seed catalogues praise the pollen free sunflowers because when they are used as cutflowers, they don't drop pollen all over your shiny table.
I consider it an abomination as well.
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Post by steev on Sept 23, 2013 21:25:52 GMT -5
Yes, well, the further we can distance ourselves from Nature, the better off we'll be, or not.
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Post by ottawagardener on Sept 24, 2013 7:36:10 GMT -5
Or not... yes
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Post by mjc on Sept 24, 2013 18:29:22 GMT -5
It's no more (or less) 'unnatural' than a mule...
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Post by steev on Sept 24, 2013 19:02:12 GMT -5
Though much less productive of potential food. Mmm, mule poblano.
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