Any botanists here? Hybrid question

[Ancalagon44]

This is just a random, idle thought that occurred to me - if there are any biologists out there, or anyone with more biological knowledge than me, I'd appreciate some words of wisdom.

I've taken up a new hobby - container gardening. I grow mostly chillies, some herbs and some trees meant to one day be bonsai.

Anyway... I use a local auction site to source seeds, and I came across the brassicas. And that got me thinking, wasabi is a brassica, why dont I grow some wasabi? Alas, its not possible to get wasabi seeds in South Africa. I can get several other brassicas, including Mizuno which is an oriental mustard green, but no wasabi.

So, I started thinking, well maybe I can breed my own by selecting the characteristics of plants I want. I mean, I know its extremely unlikely that I'll produce anything really like wasabi, but perhaps just something similar. or if not it will be a fun breeding experiment to see what I can make a plant do through hybridization.

So my question is, how would I work out how likely the seeds of a hybrid are to be fertile? If I breed across different genuses, say I cross a garden cress with a mustard green, is there any way I can predict if the seeds will be fertile or not?

If anyone has some advice for me, I'd appreciate it.

 

[BladeVenom]

I'll just start off with, I'm no botanist.

Most wasabi is actually just horseradish sometimes with mustard. Why not just grow horseradish? Anyways it would probably be a good place to start for a hybrid, or creating your own variety of horseradish that is more like wasabi.

If you can't grow or obtain fresh wasabi, how are you going to compare what you grow to real wasabi?

 

[fralexandr]

i'm not really a botanist, and you'd probably need someone specialized in Brassicaceae or mustard greens or something to actually predict if hybridization would work, but:

there's a plant breeding journal that has a few known hybrids.

http://books.google.com/books?id=dz...o brassica&pg=PA92#v=onepage&q=hybrid&f=false
a search for hybrids in that book lists various potential hybrids

apparently brassica can make some intertribal hybrids
family > tribe > genus
there are 25 tribes and ~338 genera in brassicaceae (family)
and some of those tribes can successfully hybridize
the "tribe" level underwent lots of changes recently, so you should probably use more recent publications for the tribes (due to genetic sequencing probably)
you'll probably have greater success hybridizing genera that are closer together, for instance in the same tribe.

you could probably use some of the phylogenetic trees for the brassicaceae family, and try crosses based on genera that are (somewhat) closely related (starting with some of the parents from the book above that are known to hybridize i.e B. napus [rapeseed, probably not what you're looking for], or B. juncea [edible mustard green])

these pdfs contain some rough phylogenetic trees
http://www.amjbot.org/content/93/4/607.full.pdf+html
http://www.amjbot.org/content/95/10/1307.full.pdf+html

 

[Ancalagon44]

I'll just start off with, I'm no botanist.

Most wasabi is actually just horseradish sometimes with mustard. Why not just grow horseradish? Anyways it would probably be a good place to start for a hybrid, or creating your own variety of horseradish that is more like wasabi.

If you can't grow or obtain fresh wasabi, how are you going to compare what you grow to real wasabi?

Yeah I know. Unfortunately real wasabi is extremely difficult to obtain. I dont even think I could get it to grow here in South Africa - too warm.

I have been trying, unsuccessfully, to get hold of some horseradish root or seeds. Surprisingly difficult though - its the one brassicacae (well besides wasabi obviously) that is difficult to obtain in South Africa. I saw a website online that was selling the root, and requested a quote, but they havent got back to me. Sad panda.

i'm not really a botanist, and you'd probably need someone specialized in Brassicaceae or mustard greens or something to actually predict if hybridization would work, but:

there's a plant breeding journal that has a few known hybrids.

http://books.google.com/books?id=dz...o brassica&pg=PA92#v=onepage&q=hybrid&f=false
a search for hybrids in that book lists various potential hybrids

apparently brassica can make some intertribal hybrids
family > tribe > genus
there are 25 tribes and ~338 genera in brassicaceae (family)
and some of those tribes can successfully hybridize
the "tribe" level underwent lots of changes recently, so you should probably use more recent publications for the tribes (due to genetic sequencing probably)
you'll probably have greater success hybridizing genera that are closer together, for instance in the same tribe.

you could probably use some of the phylogenetic trees for the brassicaceae family, and try crosses based on genera that are (somewhat) closely related (starting with some of the parents from the book above that are known to hybridize i.e B. napus [rapeseed, probably not what you're looking for], or B. juncea [edible mustard green])

these pdfs contain some rough phylogenetic trees
http://www.amjbot.org/content/93/4/607.full.pdf+html
http://www.amjbot.org/content/95/10/1307.full.pdf+html

Thank you! Those are some awesome resources. Pity it would cost nearly $300 to buy the first resource you linked - I dont even spend that much on graphics cards! I suppose it depends how serious I am about this. Since my interest level is currently hobby, I'm not sure it warrants it.

But I'll read as much of that as I can, thanks!

 

[Lemon law]

My comment is as follows, how can you, OP, possibly compete with massive for profit seed companies, who engage in the same research on a massive scale for many human generations. Especially when many of them now also use the latest plant genetics gene splicing techniques.

Sure you could get lucky, but the bigger companies enhance their odds with the Thomas Edison comment, invention is 99.9% presparation and only 0.1% inspiration.

 

[Ancalagon44]

My comment is as follows, how can you, OP, possibly compete with massive for profit seed companies, who engage in the same research on a massive scale for many human generations. Especially when many of them now also use the latest plant genetics gene splicing techniques.

Sure you could get lucky, but the bigger companies enhance their odds with the Thomas Edison comment, invention is 99.9% presparation and only 0.1% inspiration.

Uh, I really dont care. I'm not doing this for money. If its a complete failure then its a complete failure, so what?

 

[BladeVenom]

My comment is as follows, how can you, OP, possibly compete with massive for profit seed companies, who engage in the same research on a massive scale for many human generations.

It's not like he'd be competing against Monsanto. The market for wasabi is mostly Japan, and even there it's not a huge crop. Even something as internationally used as horseradish, is mostly grown around one city, Collinsville Il. A little goes a long ways.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

Uh, I really dont care. I'm not doing this for money. If its a complete failure then its a complete failure, so what?

That's how you do casual science, so :thumbsup: to you.

I'm not a botanist but I am a biologist, and I've done a lot of research on hybridization in mammals. FWIW.

I will simply say that hybridization success is difficult to predict. A great place to start is plant genetics journals that already catalog hybridization attempts between species you're interested in. The Brassicaceae are extraordinarily well-studied so there is a wealth of information out there for you to research.

You might also be interested in checking out Wisconsin Fast Plants. These are Brassica rapa that have been strongly selected for ease of growing and an extremely fast growth time. You likely won't get anything tasty out of them, but their fast growth makes them less patience-trying to work with.

 

[rahul]

No way to predict if you will get fertile hybrids, unless similar crosses (involving closely related species, perhaps) have been tried out before (as pointed out by fralexandr). However, it is easier to produce fertile hybrids with plants than animals, so you could very well get interesting results.

If your idea is just to create a wasabi substitute, google suggests a few places you might be able to get horseradish plants from: Western Cape, more Western Cape.

The "real" wasabi horseradish probably will not grow in SA.

 

[alkemyst]

My comment is as follows, how can you, OP, possibly compete with massive for profit seed companies, who engage in the same research on a massive scale for many human generations. Especially when many of them now also use the latest plant genetics gene splicing techniques.

Sure you could get lucky, but the bigger companies enhance their odds with the Thomas Edison comment, invention is 99.9% presparation and only 0.1% inspiration.

I don't think the OP is looking to become another seed company. Botany is a popular hobby due to how much faster you can 'breed change'.

OP as far as fertile hybrids, that is more or less getting lucky in the genetics world. Most hybrids whether it be plant or animal have great value, but can not reproduce themselves.

Even then the progeny of the two may not be the same and you may have to use the original parents each time.

 

[alkemyst]

The "real" wasabi horseradish probably will not grow in SA.

At least in native conditions. Even basic botanists use climate-control/altering devices. A lot of time even altering day/night cycles.