More mutant basil
Apr. 6th, 2006 08:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lindajThis morning I took a closer look at my other basil seedlings, and discovered that some of them are developing 3 leaves per node in the 2nd or 3rd set of true leaves, even if they began life with 2 cotyledons and 2 leaves per node. One may even have 4 leaves starting on the next node, but thus far they're too tiny to tell.
Then I went back and looked at the seedlings that were started a few weeks earlier, all of which had their growing tips pinched back on the Equinox, so the'd send out side branches. Some of them have also started producing 3 leaves per node. One, interestingly, has one 2-leaf branch and one 3-leaf branch.
In all cases, it starts as one full-sized leaf on one side, and what appears to be a "twinned" leaf on the other...the two twinned leaves are smaller on their first node, then the sizes even out over the next node or two.
I picked the brain of our plant geneticist on Tuesday, and he gave me a fair bit of info, though of course we're mostly guessing about what's really going on, and how it might play out. This was before the discovery of these latest developments.
Fascinating.
Then I went back and looked at the seedlings that were started a few weeks earlier, all of which had their growing tips pinched back on the Equinox, so the'd send out side branches. Some of them have also started producing 3 leaves per node. One, interestingly, has one 2-leaf branch and one 3-leaf branch.
In all cases, it starts as one full-sized leaf on one side, and what appears to be a "twinned" leaf on the other...the two twinned leaves are smaller on their first node, then the sizes even out over the next node or two.
I picked the brain of our plant geneticist on Tuesday, and he gave me a fair bit of info, though of course we're mostly guessing about what's really going on, and how it might play out. This was before the discovery of these latest developments.
Fascinating.
