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Rare Clone
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Did you know you can grow many sorts of brassica in your garden by stem division? You don't need to buy seeds at all.
This trick will be very familiar to organic gardeners who like to experiment with new gardening ideas. They've trimmed off the side stems of a tomato and sunk them into a pot of moist sand and seen them grow little roots.
These stems produce new plants that are perfect clones of the original. It's a helpful way to multiply the stock, early in the year, especially if they've lost some plants to late frost. It's one trick of intensive organic gardening.
But did you know you can also clone cabbages?
In this case, trim away the complete stems of a mature plant. Coat the cut ends in a rooting compound to stop rot. Our grandfathers used dry wood ashes or soot.
Some while later, plant them in a pot of weak compost until the cutting grows new leaves. And plant them out. You will have an exact clone of the first brassica.
This trick is valuable in growing cabbages successively, for example in tropical climates where it is hard to save seed. It's also useful if you're trying to save the seed of a rare plant 'pure' to the original.
You must grow the plant across two years, by which time it might have been contaminated. Brassica may cross-pollinate as much as a mile away with any other cabbage, even with swedes. But if the plant never goes to seed, you will get a true clone.
The idea works with virtually any brassica.
This technique works with kale, brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower and collards. It won't using leafy plants like spinach or lettuce but they aren't brassica.
Is it a new idea to clone a cabbage? No, it's been used throughout recorded history. Thomas Hill writes about it in The Gardener's Labyrinth, 1594. Robert Thompson devoted a whole page about it in The Gardener's Assistant of 1871.
A variation was to take up a cabbage stem in the fall, its leaves having been eaten. The entire plant was sliced into quarters vertically and dipped in wood ash, newly slaked lime or soot and left to dry. It was then stored until next year in a tub of slightly damp sand.
Next season, the root segments were set out again and, if they hadn't rotted meanwhile, up came a new plant.
Is that how they developed Brussel sprouts?
It's tempting to think that cloning - usually considered a modern technique - was used around the 1600s to develop those varieties we now know well - Brussels sprouts and the Savoy cabbage. They appeared very suddenly. How did gardeners keep these varieties pure and stabilize them - when cabbages will cross-pollinate so easily?
Maybe farmers saw an interesting mutation emerge - perhaps a cabbage that grew a lot of heads instead of just one large one. And they kept it going by stem division.
That sounds more likely than to imagine that farmers rigorously kept the novel varieties 2000 yards apart, at a time when cross-pollination was not fully understood.
Grafting skills were well known amongst farmers in this period. It would have been easy to graft a cabbage stem - by growing it separately.
What other experiments did they try, now forgotten by us? For instance, we have since discovered that many species like peppers, aubergines and potatoes can be propagated from stem cuttings - and even spliced onto each other to produce entirely new varieties. For instance, a tomatogine or peppergine.
Ancient gardeners did not have these exotic species, but we have them. Could we develop amazing new plants in our own yards - merely by cloning ordinary household vegetables?
Dr John Yeoman PhD is founder of the center for natural gardening ideas, the Gardening Guild. You'll find dozens of original strategies to get more fun, food and profit in a with less expense and labor in his big guide Lazy Secrets for Natural Gardening Success. Get it for free at:
http://www.gardeningguild.org/lazy
Hydroponics Supplies Required for Cloning Plants
No wonder that experienced hydroponic gardeners consider plants cloning an easy and always a successful work. They grow new plants from the cuttings for some time and have already discovered all the possible problems of this process. A beginner, on the other hand, may treat this activity as a very delicate, difficult, and rarely successful procedure.
In fact, it is true that cloning may often result in failures; however, the key to success in this process depends not only on the skillfulness, knowledge, and experience of a grower – here the results pretty much ensue from the availability of the necessary tools at hand of a gardener. The lack of hydroponics supplies often causes mistakes and incorrect execution of the procedure, leading to the cuttings damage, weakness, and stress. In the long run, such clones take more time to start to grow, or they fail at all.
If you are one of those hydroponic gardeners who are significantly disappointed with your attempts to clone the best plants in the garden, you should first of all carefully inspect hydroponic supplies you have. The most helpful and important ones are those described below.
Razor Blade – this is, perhaps, the most important tool, as the healing of a cutting depends on how carefully it is cut. Blunt blade will damage the stem, because you will have to use more pressure and take more efforts to cut the plant. All this will destroy the structure of the stem, so it will not be able to normally absorb water and nutrients; therefore such damage will prolong the time of the plant’s healing. Consequently, it is recommended to always have a set of new sharp razor blades if you plan to take cuttings.
Rooting Gel – This gel is a substance that includes a complex of various hormones, which aid in the rooting of your cuttings. These hormones speed up the process and increase the chances of the successful plant’s rotting. A gardener should cover the bottom part of the stem with a thin layer of rooting gel. Beware of applying too thick layer, as it will prevent oxygen supply to the plant. The effectiveness of the gel may still be increased with the use of rockwool cloning cubes. Such combination ensures fast development of the strong roots.
Vitamin B Supplement – The process of cutting is a severe stress for a plant, which disrupts normal growth and development and disturbs the ability of the plant to absorb water and nutrients necessary for the successful growth. Offering the additional supply of vitamin B to the cutting, a gardener increases the chances of this vitamin to be uptake by the plant. The supplement will make the cutting stronger and help to restore vital functions, thus, aiding in the successful rooting.
Heating Pad – Gardeners recommend placing a small heating pad under a cloning tray. This will eliminate the risk of cuttings to remain in the colder environment. It is a common knowledge that warm conditions enhance the process of rooting and ecizing. Therefore, one of the simplest hydroponic supplies turns out to be one of the most important as well.
There are many ways for the plants to successfully clone themselves in the natural environment. Hydroponics gardening techniques try to be as close to the natural conditions as possible. Therefore, a gardener should also take some efforts to create such favorable conditions for his indoor garden. With such approach cloning your favorite plants will be a success
About the Author
My name is guy. I am the founder and owner of the urbangardenershop.com.au . I fell in love with hydroponics gardening. As time went by I gathered a vast knowledge base and 2 years ago I decided to find a way to make hydroponics gardening a hobby that anyone can peruse. I added a hydroponic gardening information center to our hydroponic supplies site that offers a large range of hydroponics articles. Thank you for your interest and feel free to ask questions on hydroponics gardening in our site
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If there are only 13 of the rare white rhinos left in the world?
Why can't scientist clone them since we can't seem to get them to mate. If not clone couldn't we make the females pregnant with the males sperm. I think we should try these things before it's to late.
There are only 13 NORTHERN white rhinos left. There are about 11,000 southern white rhinos. They're subspecies of the same species, from what I understand. The southern subspecies was apparently almost extinct at one point, but made a massive comeback, so maybe the northern could pull off the same.
Cloning wouldn't do much good in the long term. First of all, it's still not reliable. Second of all, we don't want five of the exact same rhino - it would do nothing to restore genetic variety to the species. As for artificial insemination, I'm not sure, but at this point with only 13 left, it seems like inbreeding and resulting disorders could make it impossible to create a viable population. I'm sure the scientists are trying all that they can, but there's only so much we can do with the technology we have.
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