Triploid plants

[jolene]

How many people have got triploid plants growing at the moment? And is it beneficial in terms of vigour?
I only ask as I have an ultra haze with this trait and I like the look of it, but was wondering if it is something that can be passed on in the seeds or is a simple mutation. It doesnt seem to be growing as fast as the others but then again it is putting on more mass I guess.
I intend to breed from it as I like the strain but does anyone have bad things to say about these plants?

 

[bud_me]

There's a lot of information from GMT and others here:

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=53476&highlight=triploid

 

[58FLH]

Jolene,
There's a seed shop in Canada that is selling beans for triplods. The name is Ricks seeds these seeds are high dollar too.

 

[jolene]

Aaaaah - very cool, thanks for that. Jury is still out on whether it is a good thing/a bad thing or a novelty thing. Im keeping it anyways, looks bloody fine.

 

[Guest]

Hi, I just somehow got a triploid off a clone from a regular plant. Here are pictures.



It's hard to tell but if you click on this image and view the enlarged version. You can clearly see there are two leaves developing on the left and one on the right at the newest formation. Also the shoot below has three evenly developed leaves. I didn't notice this until I read this thread and the one linked to by bud_me. I definitely plan to grow it out and see what happens!

 

[Guest]

There is no such thing as a natural triploid plant....

you probably mean trifoliate...

 

[Guest]

I'm a first time grower and just heard about this yesterday so I don't know what I'm talking about but I know one of my plants is growing three leaves rather than two at each shoot for some reason and it looks cool. Can anyone explain easily how or why this happens I don't understand it myself. I was reading the other link and it was getting way too technical for me so I just stopped reading.

 

[GMT]

hehe, yeah sorry about that

 

[jolene]

There is no such thing as a natural triploid plant....

you probably mean trifoliate...

Trifoliate just means three leaflets which make up a single leaf - I mean that at each leaf node there are 3 sets of leaves rather than the usual 2

Why can there not be a natural triploid plant?

 

[GMT]

I'll give this ago. But it is kinda technical. I use the term trifoliar for what you are describing. Its a pretty general term which includes plants like clovers. They can be diploid triploid or polyploid in essence. This means that they may have 2, 3, or 4 chains of DNA in the forms double helix, triple helix or quadrahelix. The number of helixs, at least as far as I can tell, is totally irrelevant to whether the plants are bifoliar, ( having 1 leaf on 2 sides of the plant at each nodal level) trifoliar (having 1 leaf on 3 sides of the plant at each nodal point), or Quads (1 leaf on 4 sides). This is fairly easy to understand when you consider plants that start off as standard plants, and then develop the trifoliar tendency. The structure of their DNA will remain fairly static ie they wont develop an additional chain of DNA or lose a chain depending on whether or not they are displaying the trifoliar pheno at that node. Triploids, are plants that contain 3 helixs. This occurs naturally as 5% of all diploid cells that are supposed to divide and become haploid cells ready for reproduction, fail to split appart, and then are joined by a haploid cell from the sexual partner. This occurs in animals as well as plants, and 10% of pregnancies misscarry early due to this phenomenon in humans. Due to 5% of all all sex cells failing to split correctly, this means that some of the Diploid cells meet other Diploid cells, creating 0.25% of all creations being polyploid in genetic construction. However this is irrelevant to the phenotype expressed, other than they are more likely to be sickly plants with genes fighting for dominance.
Hope thats of some use to you.

 

[jolene]

Yup that is of much use - I was more curious why see of green says there is no naturally occurring triploid plants, like you say, incomplete meiotic division happens all the time.
I read your (very cool) thread on this topic and was wondering if you kept them for interest value or because they yielded/grew better?
I read that triploidy creates a slightly less vigorous plant whereas tetraploidy will made an extremely potent plant - admittedly i skim read it a bit...

 

[GMT]

why cant I see Jolenes post after mine in this thread. My CP tells me there is a reply, Clicking on Jolenes name shows me the start of the reply, but this thread isnt showing it.

Edit... ok now it shows,

Again, Triploids refer to the number of helixs in the dna chain, not the number of leaves on the plant. I certainly dont find that they are less productive, it all depends on the plant concerned. It doesnt guarantee better or worse performance, its just another phenotype. I kept them around as an experiment to watch breeding in action. I wanted to try a few things out, and its an easy spot having 3 leaves, not like having a fruity taste after cure, its spottable early on, making breeding for it easier.

 

[Blunt Trauma]

Out of 10 or more trifoliate plants in my life of growing I've never gotten a female. Every one of them male, but each one piqued my interest and I WANTED to see them bud. It seemed like there would be more bud sites to grow from.

 

[Evolution]

vagaries of the vb database perhaps gmt, very good reading above, thanks for the synthesis.....so what about polyploid cannabis? and can you elucidate on your findings and accumulated knowledge? fascinating contribution(s) my friend, keep up the great work...

 

[GMT]

hehe Blunt, I spent ages waiting for my first male trifoliar. All my early ones were female and I started to suspect the stories of male trifoliars were fakes or urban legends. So I can see why you'd think they are all males. Truth is, they can be either male or female, and so I assume they can be both ie hermies too. Never seen a hermie trifoliar, just assuming. I have a female in flower fully seeded in the 3+3 thread and a few more in Lazy Growing if you are interested.
Hey Evolution, yeah you are probably right on the VB, seems to be feeling off colour the last few days. Well anything ending in Ploid refers to the number of chains in the DNA Helix. And the counting is Ha, Di, Tri, Poly, 1, 2, 3, 4. Some people are convinced that trifoliar plants are created due to triploid genetics, I'm so unconviced about that that I'm almost convinced it isnt correct. The theory of polyploids being sickly, maybe true, as there would be several sets of genes, (some in each chain of dna) all trying to supress other genes or looking to be supressed by other genes, that it just seems likely that the plants wouldnt perform too well. Saying that though there are plenty of plants that dont perform too well anyway. And the frequency of a polyploids occuring and growing rather than stalling, means that the majority of poor performing plants are normal Diploids just not performing. Statistically, you will have to grow 400 plants to find one polyploid, now if you have 400 plants, and now knowing that the number of helixs arent connected to the number of leaves per node, how would you spot the polyploid? The only way would be to test the dna of each plant. Somewhat expensive and time consuming. Certainly not something that I'm set up for. Without doing that, and then carrying out a series of experiments, anything we discuss about them beyond that, is just guess work. But plants that put out 2, 3, and 4 leaves per node, are not creating whole new chains of dna each time the leaf count goes up, nor are they deleting whole chains of dna when the leaf count goes down. Small sections of dna on one part of one of the chains seems likely, but not whole chains.

 

[Evolution]

hey GMT, thanks for the quick reply....so, i see what you are saying about the differences between trifoliar and triploid....very cool...

do you doubt a connection between the trifoliar/quadfoliar phenotype(s) and the polyploid 'condition'? if so , have you discounted the possibility of temporally variable gene expression? if the plant is expressing variable phenotypical expression at various nodes,why does that exlude the possibility of polyploidy and consequentail genetic linkage?

i see your point about dna testing, how i would love the capabilities myself--but just think of the works of mendel and burbank w/o modern equipment...amazing

....would it be possible to design a test cross to determine polyploidy in cannabis? especially if we could link the tri/quadfoliar phenotypic expression to the polyploid genotype...

ramble on, thanks again for the info.....


peace and best wishes

 

[GMT]

Hey Evo,
well, kind of. Given that a new chain isn't being created and destroyed each time a new pheno expression can be observed at a nodal point, I don't see any need for an additional chain of dna to be involved at any point. I'm not saying that trifoliars and quads cant have extra chains, just that it isnt necessary for that pheono to show through. Although I accept that if a plant is fighting itself over pheono expressions, that is a good plant to test for such qualities as triploidity or polyploidity. But it would be the fighting aspect (the successfull and unsuccessfull supression or dominance of genes temporarily) that would indicate the possability rather than simply the extra leaf.
The advantage Mendel did have over us, is that the authorities werent out looking for pea growers.
I can't think of an easy test to do without the right equipment. The irony is that extracting the dna is fairly simple, its the counting of the strands that requires the big equipment.
I've put this in the thread that wasn't very successfull, as it went into too much detail, but my view is that stable trifoliar plants are plants which have had their gene for leaf, duplicated into 2 separate chrmosomes on one stand of dna. The test for that will be when the first line of trifoliar male x trifoliar female seeds start growing. If the theory is correct, some chains will meet up with chains with one chromosome containing the instructions leaf, some will meet up with chains containing 2 such sets of instructions. This will mean that some offspring are bifoliar, some trifoliar and where a double set of intructions meet another set of double instructions, natural quads should be born. The trouble is of course, you get the same outcome regardless of whether I am right or whether the Multi-dna chains train of thought is right.
The only test I can think of is to watch the plant grow, if it seems sure of what its doing, my money would be on a diploid make up, if its fighting itself and expressing one thing at one node and another at another node, then there is (I'd have to admit) the possability of triploidity or polyploidity. But thats far from a good answer. If a test can be designed, I can't design it.

 

[Evolution]

gmt- great anwser, hmm i love your experiment, very exciting...i must join your thread...as a student of plant breeding i am enthralled by your advances in this most risky endeavor...

so, hmm, could a stable trifoliar plant be triploid? doesn't it seem unlikely?

 

[GMT]

Due to the nature of dividing 3 by two using only whole numbers, a stable line of triploid based genetics is unlikely. Or do you mean a single plant that exhibits the trifoliar pheno consistantly? If the latter, then I dont know. I figure more will become apparent when the seeds from trifoliar x trifoliar are grown out. To find out whats going on with the parents, I need to test the children. Its possible. Whether likely or not, I dont know. But personally, I dont think so.