aruzinsky

I have been trying to undwarf M. 'Truly Tiny' by artificial means. Usually mutations are dwarf because they are deficient and/or insensitive to GA. I found that M. 'Truly Tiny' is very insensitive but not completely insensitive to GA. I had an M. Truly Tiny with a 14" trunk and there was no progressive increase in petiole length or leaf size. On 2/7/17 and several times shortly afterwards, I sprayed with 25 ppm GA without any noticeable results. Then on 2/27/17, I sprayed with 500 ppm GA and on 3/4/17, I sprayed with 1000 ppm. By practical standards, 1000 ppm of GA is an enormous amount, too expensive for commercial applications. Anyway, I got results,.Photo taken today:



As you can see, the trunk has extended by about 4". I will keep you apprised of progress.

cincinnana

Cool post....how bout those Cannas in the background have you spritzed them yet.....
or have tried your hand at feminizing seeds. That stuff is amazing.

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aruzinsky

No GA on those cannas, 'Bethany' and 'B. Marley' but I tried 25 ppm GA on C. 'Pink Sunburst' while planted outdoors in the summer of 2016. It made the petioles so long that they collapsed under their own weight and there was no increase in leaf area although the leaves were longer. Incidentally, here is a photo of that plot:


C. 'Pink Sunburst' are the ones with pink flowers but you can't see the GA treated ones because they are in the back.

cincinnana

That is an amazing colorful garden area..

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cincinnana

Sooo..... Have you tried to feminize seeds yet?
Locally... some of the fella
apply it on their cherries.

I do have to add ..Truly Tinys in south florida are chest high...so you have a ways to go with the G-juice..

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aruzinsky

No, I have no need to apply GA to seeds.

When I bought my 'Truly Tiny', it was advertised as having a maximum trunk height of 2 feet. Same for 'Little Prince'. Both grow fast when small but slow down near this height.

cincinnana

Agreed.....why mess with a dwarf.
.

Pups by
Hostafarian,
on Flickr
However for the cherry crop is another story.. Leland Mi


Untitled
by
Hostafarian, on Flickr

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aruzinsky

Firstly, I want to increase the rate of maturation which I mathematically define as (A1 - A2)/T where

A1 = area of newest leaf
A2 = area of leaf previous to newest
T - time between unfurling of newest and second newest leaf

That is of obvious practical value.

Secondly, the knowledge gained may have practical applications in the future in ways that I can't anticipate.

aruzinsky

Update, photos taken yesterday:



I drilled out the two suckers, after which another immediately appeared:


Left Little Prince was sprayed multiple times with 10 ppm Thidizuron (TDZ):


Compare with same plant, lower left, on 2/22/17:


Growth seems to have improved slightly with TDZ treatment.
Similar treatment seemed to suppress sucker growth on a larger Little Prince:

But, did not improve growth of mother plant.

So, starting yesterday, I will spray the GA treated Truly Tiny with 10 ppm TDZ, hopefully to suppress sucker growth.

wolfebc

I like your enthusiasm and admire your initiative with this experiment.
The truly tiny is a sport of a dwarf Cavendish so I cheated and just bought
a dwarf Cavendish and instantly increased the rate of maturation and the
value of A1- area of new leaf and A2-Area of new leaf previous to the next.

TADA

aruzinsky

I like your attention to my comment about the rate of maturation. The difficulty will be sustaining or increasing the rate of maturation of your plant.

Last autumn, the rates of maturation of both my 'Truly Tiny' and 'Little Prince' were negative for several months because of a mite infestation that I discovered too late because my eyesight isn't what it used to be. I eradicated the mites with Avid and bifenthrin but not before a lot of damage was done.

aruzinsky

Update:

Three new leaves since last photo show big improvement with TDZ application:


Incidentally, I am starting a new experiment in which this M. 'Little Prince' is exposed to far red light (735nm) from an LED spotlight between 7 pm and 12 am:

wolfebc

I really enjoy your posts and admire your eagerness to learn.
Have you ever done any experiments to try and encourage a
banana plant to variegate?
I have a Dwarf Giant that occasionally puts out a leaf with a streak
of a different color. I would like to try and encourage it to variegate.
Any thoughts or ideas on this would be greatly appreciated.

Also have you done any experiments on dwarfing banana plants? This
would be super beneficial to those of us that live in an area that is too
cold to grow most cultivars year round in the ground.

aruzinsky

I have done no experiments to encourage variegation. I do know that many, if not most, variegated plants are chimeras. All of the variegated cannas that you see in my photos are chimeras. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_(genetics). I am familiar with an unstable chimera, heliconia 'rubricaulis." It tends to lose it's variegation if grown too fast. If your Dwarf Giant is a chimera, maybe, it will produce more variegation with less light and fertilizer to reduce its growth rate.

I have dwarfed banana plants by using chemical plant growth regulators that are GA antagonists. See my post here:

Oh no!! I broke my banana!! Is it over????

also my photo here:

Ornata Bronze

wolfebc

Thanks for the help. I am looking forward to seeing
your future posts.

aruzinsky

No more GA treatments but I did repot. As you can see, my largest Truly Tiny and Little Prince have 25" and 24" pseudostems, respectively:

Truly Tiny


Close-up of Truly Tiny:


Little Prince:


Close-up of Little Prince:

anita

It depends how you made the GA3 soluble in water., it is an insoluble acid. I might be that at a higher concentration solubility was higher thus having an effect.
At over 200ppm it should have had an effect on steam elongation.

aruzinsky

No, the maximum solubility of GA in water at 25 deg C is 5000 ppm. See

https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/com...ion=Solubility

To facilitate dissolution, I first dissolved 1g. in about 10 ml. methanol (I eyeballed the amount of methanol) and then added the methanol solution to 1 liter of water. I also added 0.25 ml Triton X100 surfactant to prevent beading of spray on foliage.

It may interest you to know that similar procedures are used to dissolve poorly soluble flavor compounds in water, e.g., in making cola or root beer. Some of these compounds have a maximum solubility of less than 10 ppm. If you were to just dump such compounds in water, they might take years to fully dissolve. But, by first adding them to an edible, water miscible, organic solvent, e.g., propylene glycol or ethanol, they readily dissolve in water (to their maximum concentration). I know this because I am an amateur (hobby) flavorist.

anita

That is what I was saying. I know how prepare Ga3 and many other chemicals. I use rubbing alcohol 99%, it is easier and less dangerous to plants than methanol and distilled water at 50 C. Dissolving it only in water would be a waste of time.

aruzinsky

1. You said, "it is an insoluble acid" when you should have said "it is poorly soluble." That is why I said "No."

2. The only rubbing alcohol that I have seen is 70% ethanol but 91% isopropanol is commonly sold at drug stores and you can buy 95% ethanol at liquor stores.

3. It is an empirical fact that many plants can be sprayed with up to 50% methanol in water without damage. Methanol sprays have been reported to be beneficial to C3 plants. Bananas are C3.

See http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/.../1092.full.pdf

That is why I prefer to use methanol as a solvent for plant sprays.

If by "steam" you meant "stem," then, no, because the stem of even tall bananas are as short as possible with no spaces between petiole nodes. Besides, I would have to dissect the banana plant to examine its stem. The object was to lengthen petioles or what others call "pseudostem."