Hybrid hibiscus general question

[helixturnhelix]

Hi Kerry,

Looks like we were on at the same time!  AOP is where I volunteered   Dr. Lance Adams is the head vet, he is a pretty cool guy, but can be moody, so tread lightly when he is.  The main Vet tech is Colleen Mclaughlin and shes crazy, loves horses and pinnipeds.  Both are nice and if you actually want to volunteer, the best thing to do is e-mail him directly.  It can be a PITA if you go through their volunteer service.  His e-mail is ladams@lbaop.org, you should just introduce yourself and tell him what you are doing, what your goals are, and why you want to volunteer with him.  Then he will prob let you come in once a week and see what he does.  Fair warning, most of the time it is pretty boring, but when you get to do stuff it is really really cool.  I will contact your friend when I am ready for a cat, prob wont be until October   Let me know if you end up volunteering with Lance.

-Chris

[Charlie]

Such interesting backgrounds you all have! For some reason we've had a lot of vets order from us over the years. Lots of MDs and other medical types, too. I guess people who care about living things are naturally interested in the plants with the most beautiful of all flowers  -  a little bias showing lol.

Chris, back to the topic earlier in this thread, you mentioned "every few years there is often a huge overhaul on phylogenetic trees when someone uses genetic analysis to determine the "relativeness" between two species.  I think it would be interesting to take genetic markers from the original species and compare them to which markers are present in modern hybrids.  Then you could know for sure which species were cross pollinated to make that variety."

Perhaps the day is coming when it will be easier to do that, or easier to find someone qualified to interest in doing it. In years past some work was done on hibiscus genetics and what was found was not surprising - that Hibiscus sp hybrids have widely varying numbers of chromosomes.

By growing the hibiscus species that are compatible with H rosa-sinensis one of my hopes was to identify traits in these species that I see occurring over and over in the modern hybrids. Ability to root easily is one such trait. That quality seemed to be lost in many of the hybrids that came from crossing with the Hawaiian species and that is what I find when rooting H. arnottianus, the white Hawaiian that was used so often in crosses about 100 years ago.

Anyway, this line of exploration is certainly interesting and I'm hoping we will see some real progress with it one of these days.

Charlie

[Nievesgirl]

Hi Kerry,

Looks like we were on at the same time!  AOP is where I volunteered   Dr. Lance Adams is the head vet, he is a pretty cool guy, but can be moody, so tread lightly when he is.  The main Vet tech is Colleen Mclaughlin and shes crazy, loves horses and pinnipeds.  Both are nice and if you actually want to volunteer, the best thing to do is e-mail him directly.  It can be a PITA if you go through their volunteer service.  His e-mail is ladams@lbaop.org, you should just introduce yourself and tell him what you are doing, what your goals are, and why you want to volunteer with him.  Then he will prob let you come in once a week and see what he does.  Fair warning, most of the time it is pretty boring, but when you get to do stuff it is really really cool.  I will contact your friend when I am ready for a cat, prob wont be until October   Let me know if you end up volunteering with Lance.



-Chris

Hey Chris thanks for the info ! I will type an Introduction up soon.
Also It will be wise to email Karen now. Most breeders have Christmas kittens Karen should be breeding in July so kittens will be ready by dec. Just tell her you are not ready yet and would like to be notified when kittens are born.

[Nievesgirl]

Such interesting backgrounds you all have! For some reason we've had a lot of vets order from us over the years. Lots of MDs and other medical types, too. I guess people who care about living things are naturally interested in the plants with the most beautiful of all flowers  -  a little bias showing lol.

Chris, back to the topic earlier in this thread, you mentioned "every few years there is often a huge overhaul on phylogenetic trees when someone uses genetic analysis to determine the "relativeness" between two species.  I think it would be interesting to take genetic markers from the original species and compare them to which markers are present in modern hybrids.  Then you could know for sure which species were cross pollinated to make that variety."

Charles I been thinking about this every since I found a link listing hibiscus chromosome numbers, I was surprised to see such variation (again which lead to my first question in this thread)  It makes perfect sense to why some hibiscus hybrids are not good seed setters, maybe the chromosomes are not matching up resulting in no seeds.

Laboratories have been coming up with many things to test on dogs. The newer ones are Iding breeds by DNA and color testing ( what colors the dog carries for breeding)  I wonder if I could find someone interested in helping. I will see if I could contact the head of agriculture at pierce he may have some resources for plants.

I been pondering ideas to test with my hibiscus once I start hybridizing them. If my theories are successful I will be making a website with what I am working on. Plants are much easier than breeding cats or dogs lol because of the maintainece and health testing involved with dogs and cats.

[helixturnhelix]

I don't know if looking at chromosome number would be the most accurate method for determining hybrid ancestry, but it is easy enough to do!  The cool thing about plants is when they hybridize with similar species with different chromosome numbers, for example a plant with 10 breeds with a plant with 12, the offspring has an intermediate number of 11.  As you noticed Kerry, the chromosomes would not line up, thus making the offspring sterile.  This observation would be correct if this organism was say a Liger (Tiger x Lion) or Mule.  But allopolyploid plants (the plant with 11 chromosomes) have a really cool way of dealing with this infertility by forgoing one round of cytokinesis (membrane separation), making the new chromosome number in the cell 22.  The reason why you have 22 chromosomes now, is only cytokinesis fails and the cell still undergos DNA replication.  After this process, the chromosomes are able to pair up and the plant is now able to produce gametes and becomes fertile.  Since this process doesnt always occur in plants there are still some hybrids which are infertile.  It would be interesting to see if some bad seed setters, after maturing spontaneously become good seed setters.

Back to the idea of testing hibiscus ancestry.  The most accurate way to do this is to perform genomic analysis on all the ancestral species, and identify species specific loci.  Once these loci are identified, the next thing to do is take the hybrid in question and determine which loci are present.  If a specific loci identified matches an ancestral species, then you can be sure that ancestor was used in the creation of that hybrid.  It is pretty easy to perform these tests now, and it will only get cheaper as time progresses

-Chris

[Darkhorse]

At first I was dead set on going into equine medicine, then after working with an equine vet I decided I might enjoy small animal more.  I love cats and horses especially, so I was somewhat undecided about which field to go into.  Right now, though, I'm taking a break from all the stress of school and just training horses.  I'm actually glad I didn't get into UGA for a couple of reasons... one I'm not 100% sure I even want to go into the veterinary field.  I've been thinking a lot lately about working as a law enforcement officer with the ASPCA, something like "Animal Cops" on Animal Planet.  Comes from my vindictive personality I guess.     Two I'm from SC but I moved to CA four years ago, and I don't really want to leave.  If I end up going to vet school later I will probably apply to Davis, although it's much more expensive than UGA.

Anywho, aside from the outstanding beauty of the hibs (I'm with you Charlie, it's my fav too!!), I'm really fascinated with genetics.   It started with equine color genetics a few years back and evolved into genetics of all mammilian species.  Then after getting my first modern hibiscus hybrid I became interested in the plants as well.  The chromosome # differences are amazing.  No doubt that this is why some pods develop without seeds.  For example I think in humans 20-30% of pregnancies are aborted due to genetic problems before the pregnancy is detected.  Plants have a little different "monitoring system," if the cross doesn't work no seeds will even develop, so no "abortion" is needed...

Whew do I know how to go off on a tangent or what LOL!

[helixturnhelix]

Equine medicine is sweet.  I have a friend who just graduated from SC state's veterinary program and she is doing an externship in equine medicine in San Diego.  I really wish that I could be in SD, but that will have to wait till school is done.  Davis is one of the top veterinary schools and being a guy helps you a bit considering something like 80% of veterinary school applicants are female.  If you are ok with not staying in cali, Colorado state and Cornell are also top notch   I would advise against Western university for the time being, because they have an unusual curriculum and it is too new to know if it is effective. 

Genetics is awesome, I spent 3 years in a genetics lab and the fact that I still find it interesting is a feat in itself.  The new frontier is epigenetics (how the environment effects gene expression) A perfect example of this is how temp, light nutrients and influence hibiscus color and size!  Or how identical twins begin to look different as they age, or suffer from different diseases.  Very cool stuff, and oh boy this is a huge tangent

[Darkhorse]

Yeah I'm with you Chris the epigenetics sounds really interesting.  And the hibs are a perfect model.  I don't know that I could do labwork, although I briefly thought about working for Davis one day and doing work on the equine color genetics thing.  I really want to own and operate a small horse breeding facility one day, just with my own horses, and breed quality, athletic sport horses but in unusual colors.

So what do you think you'll end up doing with your background?

[Nievesgirl]

I am into dog and cat genetics , with breeding the bobtails it was very tricky.  I am also not sure where I will end up this is the never ending story of my life.

It seems like most of us live in CA, we need to start a CA hibiscus Society

[helixturnhelix]

To be honest, I have no idea what I want to be doing.  I started college wanted to be an M.D, switched to Veterinary medicine and now I study bacterial pathogensis.  Go figure!  The only thing I know is I want to end up back in Southern California

[Charlie]

Chris wrote:
After this process, the chromosomes are able to pair up and the plant is now able to produce gametes and becomes fertile.  Since this process doesnt always occur in plants there are still some hybrids which are infertile.  It would be interesting to see if some bad seed setters, after maturing spontaneously become good seed setters.

Hi Chris and all,

This is very, very interesting. It might explain something that has puzzled me over the years. One such was with Renaissance Blue, which I wrote off as not setting seeds after trying it several dozen times in good conditions where other varieties were setting seeds like crazy. Then several years later someone wrote that he had gotten seeds from his Ren Blue. He did it indoors in a basement under artificial light so I attributed the success to the conditions but it might not have been that afterall. I plan to try it again at my first opportunity and see what happens with a mature bush.

I want to get into this subject more in the future if you are willing. But for now, it's off to work...........

Charlie

[Nievesgirl]

I don't know if looking at chromosome number would be the most accurate method for determining hybrid ancestry, but it is easy enough to do!  The cool thing about plants is when they hybridize with similar species with different chromosome numbers, for example a plant with 10 breeds with a plant with 12, the offspring has an intermediate number of 11.  As you noticed Kerry, the chromosomes would not line up, thus making the offspring sterile.  This observation would be correct if this organism was say a Liger (Tiger x Lion) or Mule.  But allopolyploid plants (the plant with 11 chromosomes) have a really cool way of dealing with this infertility by forgoing one round of cytokinesis (membrane separation), making the new chromosome number in the cell 22.  The reason why you have 22 chromosomes now, is only cytokinesis fails and the cell still undergos DNA replication.  After this process, the chromosomes are able to pair up and the plant is now able to produce gametes and becomes fertile.  Since this process doesnt always occur in plants there are still some hybrids which are infertile.  It would be interesting to see if some bad seed setters, after maturing spontaneously become good seed setters.



-Chris

I finally had a chance to read this ,  That is very interesting , I had no idea plants could do this.  I was trying to figure out why some hybrid plants are fertile but the parents produced odd number seedlings.

Please take not of what is in red. It is said that hybrid animals are sterile. If the Liger or mule is a female it is possible for them to breed, and reproduce. This is how bengal cats became a breed. F1, F2, F3 geneations produce sterile males. There have been reports of F3 males being fertile but all females are fertile from any of the generations.

[helixturnhelix]

Charlie:  I am always willing to discuss genetics, its fascinating and I wish I could play around with hibiscus genetics!  Too bad I don't have very much space to experiment.  At present I just try crossing the best varieties with one another and cross my fingers.  I wish I could be more methodical, but that will have to wait until I have more space and more experience evaluating seedlings.  Maybe even do some statistics!  Haha but that will have to wait.   

Kerry:  That is very interesting about the Bengal cats.  If only they could do what plants can   Maybe a little cat tissue culture?

[helixturnhelix]

I had a random question.  Do you ever backcross your hybrids to the original cv parent in order to get a higher percentage of offspring that have the trait of the good parent that you want, or is it still pretty low the number of good cvs you get?   I guess and example of this would be taking Valentine's day and crossing her to High Voltage again.  Therefore increasing the number of offspring that would have High Voltage's good traits.  Or perhaps crossing them to an offspring like Strawberry cream which is a high voltage self cross.  I dont know if this is true with these hybrids that have such a diverse genetic background, but I thought I would ask if you have any experience with it. 

[helixturnhelix]

I think this chart shows what I am asking better than me writing it