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New Research Study!

I'm an undergrad student in horticulture at NCSU and I've started a few research projects. The first involves mutagenesis of Sarracenia. Basically I am using cobalt-60 radiation from a nuclear reactor, colchicine, and oryzalin (Surflan) to induce mutagenesis in seeds of 10 species of Sarracenia. I will post more about this in the pitcher plant section. The second is a study of the effects of wounding, cytokinin, and auxin on leaf cuttings of D. capensis. My partner and I took thirty cuttings for each of the five treatments. So in total 150 cuttings. The first treatment is the control in which we just lay the cuttings on the media which is a 1:1 peat and milled sphagnum mix. The second treatment was a wounding treatment where we used a razor blade to make a cut down the mid-vein of the leaf. The third treatment was a wounding treatment where we used a needle to poke holes on either side of the midvein covering most of the leaf. The fourth treatment is a liquid cytokinin dip where we dipped the entire leaf into a 250ppm cytokinin formulation. The fifth treatment is a liquid auxin dip where we dipped the entire leaf into a 500ppm auxin formulation.

We have checked on the cuttings every week and on Tuesday we found buds forming on a few of the cuttings. I can't say which treatment is yielding the best results because truthfully I dont know :). The treatments are labeled randomly with numbers to reduce bias. However we have some leaves that are producing up to 11 buds on a single leaf. I checked again today and the wounding treatment using the razor blade is the treatment that has produce the most buds. The control has not even begun to produce buds yet. I think that is some promising information. I'll keep you all updated when there is more information!
 
I read your post wrong, ill be looking forward to the results.

No I didn't.

3rd edit.

Yes I did. Im just gonna sleep now. Good luck.
 
If you need any help or have any questions on the radiation portion of this (absorbed dose, computer modeling of it, anything really) just shoot me a PM, my undergrad is in nuclear and am in grad school right now for it, so working with that kind of stuff day in and day out!
 
@ColdCoffee: We are using IBA for the auxin and BA for the cytokinin. Both dips were for approximately 10 seconds. I was just counting out loud, not watching a clock.
@Vbkid: I think for now we are good with the radiation stuff. But if I need help I will definitely keep you in mind
 
Just an update on the experiment. Most of the buds that have formed on all the surviving leaves have broken and are forming plantlets. One of the treatments has produced mounds of undifferentiated cells on most of the leaves. Some of these "buds" have differentiated into plantlets but many are just staying undifferentiated. An interesting note of that treatment is that the undifferentiated growth on the leaf blades have not produced that many plantlets, but the petioles have also formed a few undifferentiated growths that have now differentiated into plantlets. I'll post some pictures soon.
 
I'm in class right now, as soon as i get home i'll get them uploaded?????? sorry
 
  • #10
Alright! So here are the pictures! There are no pictures for Week 4 because there was basically no change in growth that week, as well as I was on spring break and my partner doesn't have a camera good enough to take the quality photos we need. Also pictures didn't begin until the first signs of growth appeared it took about a week and a half for growth to appear. Anyway, enjoy! and discuss!

Update: Flickr decided it didn't want to host my pictures for this project and deleted them all and I'm having trouble uploading them again. Oh well...
 
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  • #11
Now you know how I feel after a day of volunteering.
 
  • #12
So far it looks to me like the slicing method has yielded the best results..
 
  • #13
thats kind of what we are thinking too. We tried not to cut all the way through the leaf, but it is next to impossible not to. Luckily, cutting all the way through does not seem to matter all that much.
 
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