Quote:
Originally Posted by Gabe15
The specific mutation required would be parthenocarpy. You could use radiation or mutagens to increase the rate of mutation, but as for specifically having them mutate into parthenocarpic bananas with some technique or chemical, that can't be done today. Studies have been done where auxins were applied to young, undeveloped, unpollinated fruits and the fruits actually grew as if they were parthenocarpic to some degree.
I have been working on a breeding project for almost 4 years now trying to move the parthenocarpic trait into plants like M. velutina. It is going well, but slow, mainly due to the lack of space for growing out plants, but I have a lot of new things in the ground and should be making more crosses soon. I've produced many hundreds of hybrid seeds but have not been successful in fully regenerating a plant from those seeds.
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I thought creating hybrids would only be useful for those interested in tissue culture, since hybrids don't have viable seeds. Since UV light can be a mutagen would allowing a continous amount of artificial and natural light make things more likely to occur or would that be miniscule.
I'm somewhat stand-offish from hybrids; although yields might increase, flavor, viability, nutrition, and uniqueness seem to get lost. It like eating a apple or strawberry at a supermarket then trying an heirloom or wild variety; but once you get the trait would you want to crossback? Would the trait become dominant or recessive? Also so far what has the breeding program produced?