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Nepenthes change sex from tissue culture?

Hey Folks,

I was wondering if Nepenthes can change sex as they get older from known tissue culture specimens. Meaning there's been discussion that almost all N. aristolochioides are male, and almost all hamatas seem to be male, or other hybrids / species females. But is it possible that known "males" for example from TC can turn to females because of environmental conditions when they're in their juvenile stages? I know some fishes are able to become male or female depending on the environmental stresses that may dictate a need for more of one sex. I would assume that TC plants are exact clones of the plant they are cultured from. So if that plant's sex is known, it should turn out to be the same, right? Just wondering.

Joel
Nepenthes Around the House
 
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[b said:
Quote[/b] (NepsAroundTheHouse @ Sep. 17 2005,5:48)]I know some fishes are able to become male or female depending on the environmental stresses that may dictate a need for more of one sex.
well joel i think its not due to envir. changes that determines a sex of a fish to be male or female. if its the fish you are talking about then its because the dominate male has died (killed ect) and a female in the group under goes a sex change to take his place but not because of envir change...
 
The sex of many reptiles is strongly influenced by the temp the eggs are kept at.
 
Lots of stuff can change sexes; I know frogs do, in addition to the animals mentioned. Plants can, as well - certain sexed plants can swap sexes, and asexual plants (those that have both types of flowers) can differentiate into monosexual specimens. These changes are usually the result of stress or shock. As far as I can remember, these changes are usually permanent.
~Joe
 
Interesting thought, Joel.  I know that Catasetum orchids have female flowers in bright sun and produce male flowers in the shade.

I've heard many times that male Nepenthes plants are more common, but never with any explanation.

KPG
 
It's an old thread, but looking at the recent posts about the N. aristolochioides flower, I wanted to revive discussion on this matter. Some time ago (and I can't find the thread), someone posted about an ugly-as-sin Nepenthes. The odd thing about this plant is that besides a typical male raceme, it seems to have put out what looked like a single female flower. This was borne out of a side node and it got my curiosity going. Is it possible that under certain circumstances, a nepenthes can change sex or that the genes for the opposite sex lie dormant and can lead to a female flower? It is something that's been eating at me and would love to see further research done on what controls the gender in this genus.
 
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This is a great topic! Something I have thought about at length as well...

There is that rumor that most Nepenthes in cultivation seem to be male for some reason. This makes me wonder if perhaps there is some aspect of our cultivation techniques that are mostly all similar that leads to the commonness of males. Perhaps its something about being further away from the equator that certain UV's or magnetic influences are different enough to produce predominantly male plants.

But I really do think that it could be possible to manipulate a Nepenthes into being female if it were in the TC stage, or otherwise. Most other plants can do that, and many animals as well. Why should Nepenthes be any different? The real struggle is that Nepenthes are just so slow growing and have completely arbitrary (as far as we know) flowering patterns.

I really hope that someone who has a TC lab and lots of time does a lengthy study on this!
 
They are not the same of course, however Cannabis is also a dioecious (separate sexed) plant where females are most sought after. I have read that in the high tech seed market GA3 (gibberellic acid) is being used on Cannabis seed to "feminize" them and ensure that they will more likely grow into female plants. Also research has shown that cooler temps at germination is also said to cause a higher percentage of cannabis seed to mature as females. Perhaps these factors can be put to use on Neps.

Someone could create a very low dose GA3 solution to try and misting & watering it onto a young Nep TC plantlet periodically as it grows to maturity and see what happens. Even better, add some GA3 powder into part of their flasking medium and see if it causes sex change in a known sex clone when they do their explant divisions. Then they would nearly be "re-germinating" in a GA3 infused medium. But yeah, even if someone got started today it'd be 2-5 years to see if it works.
 
They are not the same of course, however Cannabis is also a dioecious (separate sexed) plant where females are most sought after. I have read that in the high tech seed market GA3 (gibberellic acid) is being used on Cannabis seed to "feminize" them and ensure that they will more likely grow into female plants.

Not to get too far into a risque topic, but I've read that it's also possible to induce Cannabis plants to produce male and female flowers simultaneously. If this is done with a female plant, and you fertilize the female flowers with the 'male' pollen, 100% of the seeds produced will be female because no male chromosome (human y-chromosome equivalent) is present. For obvious reasons, this can be quite desirable to Cannabis growers.

From what I understand, the genetic sexual determination of Nepenthes is extremely complicated and not well understood. Aside from being dioecious, I see Nepenthes being polar opposite to Cannabis in most ways. Slow-growing, slow-maturing, environmentally-picky, rarely-flowering perennials. All of these factors make doing any kind of study on their sex or flowering extremely daunting.
 
  • #10
keep in mind when talking about marijuana that hermaphroditic plants are far from rare when compared to Nepenthes.......but along a similar note wild strawberry plants are either male or female, its only through domesticating the plants that we have developed perfect flowers in the genus.......

while discussing similarities between sexual characteristics between marijuana and nepenthes its prolly best to figure there is more than a bit of difference....to add to the discussion, marijuana breeders also use colloidal silver to produce "female pollen"

---------- Post added at 10:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:12 PM ----------

would also like to add, in discussions such as this i dont get the tip toeing around marijuana.......as far as im concerned alot can be learned from pot growers as far as indoor cultivation of other plants.....i dont see where discussing techniques of growing should be in anyway taboo just cause some states view the plant as illegal.....the plant itself doesnt have much bearing on the general growing techniques to be applied to other species....

know more than a few vegetable growers in the north that read alot on marijuana cultivation to help them grow fresh tomatoes and peppers year round....seems stupid to tiptoe round the issue when in many ways its some of the best sources of info for indoor growing....
 
  • #11
Rattler has a good point, indoor marijuana growing is definitely an area of botany that has been quite thoroughly studied and that information could transfer over to the growing of other plants.

However, it is sort of digressing, because Nepenthes and Cannabis are so totally different plants, that until extensive testing and trial and error has been done with Nepenthes we can't really know much.

But someone's gotta start trying somewhere!

If I had a large plant that had flowered and I knew the sex of, (and it was a common species of course) I would probably try emulating some variations of the techniques that have been successful in inducing sexual dimorphism in other plants.
 
  • #12
Someone could create a very low dose GA3 solution to try and misting & watering it onto a young Nep TC plantlet periodically as it grows to maturity and see what happens. Even better, add some GA3 powder into part of their flasking medium and see if it causes sex change in a known sex clone when they do their explant divisions.

FWIW I obtained some GA3 a few years ago and tried it out on some Sarr seeds. GA3 is known to break seed dormancies. IME it is VERY POTENT. It did the job in regards that the seeds germinated without a hitch but it also did it's job too well. GA3 also boosts mitotic division and the resulting seedlings were far from common little guys. Growth was quite abnormal and rather than getting the usual tiny Sarr seedling, I was getting long, skinny, malformed pitchers and sometimes an occasional loop from the rhizome. I would suspect similar results with Neps. I can't recall exactly the number but I do recall that the concentration I used was down in the 100 ppm level. That being said I would NOT turn away from GA3 but I would definitely try concentrations in the 10ppm.

There's clearly lots of work to be with Neps in terms of flowering, but my guess would that they can be flowered just like any other plant. Finding the trigger may be more of a challenge though.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC160348/pdf/051147.pdf
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/F/Flowering.html

Anyone have 5-10 years to work on a dissertation? :)
 
  • #13
Just to add my $.2...I think one piece of evidence against the hypothesis that Nepenthes can change sex under certain conditions is that (if I remember correctly) there are a few nepenthes hybrids in cultivation that are all clones of one another and all have the same sex. The fact that many are grown in different environments with no reports of sex change says something. Although, there is the possibility that some extreme conditions just haven't been met yet or that a specific species of Nep isn't capable of this.
Also, the lack of a known ability for Neps to detect whether there are any plants of the opposite sex around, much like certain amphibians do, possibly rules out that as the driving mechanism for sex change.
Enjoying this discussion,
Kyle
 
  • #14
what i would like to see is if like marijuana certain environmental conditions during initial growth influence sex...with marijuana a near perfect growing environment after planting leads to the vast majority of plants being female....in a stressed initial growth from seed all the sudden a bunch of male plants will show up along with the females.....perhaps stresses during the multiplication stage of TC could lead to a greater chance of male plants versus seed grown......
 
  • #15
I think it would be a great service to the growers (professional and hobby) if the folks doing TC would take the time to clone and offer both male AND female plants for sale. With plants becoming rare and losing their environments (not to mention the dwindling genetic pool when a native population diminishes), it would be a service to the plants also, preserving a better future for them.

Oh yea, MJ plants can change sex even when mature. The potential for a female to produce male flowers is often as easy as giving the plants less light. Possibly a trait whereby the female plants that don't get pollinated, can produce male flowers when the seasons change and the hours of daylight shorten, thus giving the plant a last opportunity to produce seed. A nice trait, but not one seen at all in Nepenthes.
 
  • #16
keepi in mind the reason for marijuana readiness to produce the fake male flowers(i say fake as its incapable of making a true male pollen) is the fact that marijuana is a annual and nepenthes are long lived perennials......given i think marijuana is the only dioecious plant thats been well studied, its quite possible that the mechanisms at work are similar as to what determines sex of a plant, the fact that marijuana does the false male flowers is likely an extension of it being an annnual and only gets one flowering season.....other dioecious plants like strawberries, nepenthes, ginkos, buffalo and sea berries get more than one season so that ability to shift into a stop gap to produce some sort of offspring isnt needed....
 
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