Hi
Question about this ancient 30,000 yr old plant that was produced..at first it just blew me away that they brought it back but then ...read they used a piece of the plant cell material in a maternal ovum to propogate
My question;
Is the product of the cross actually the plant from 30,000 yrs ago or just 1/2 of that plant due to the ovum being from a modern day plant .Result; maybe doesnt really look like the ancient plant
Itself?
Any help?
Thanks
30000 year old plant
All the articles I've read say that they started with the placental material in the fruit and micro propagation techniques to get cloned plants of the original. As an example the white stuff inside a pepper is placental material and I believe it belongs to the mother plant and not the seed. I assume that when these plants flowered, they were pollinated with each other.
To answer your question. The first plants they grew where clones of the the 30,000 year old plant and thus where identical to the original one. Their offspring would be equivalent to the seed the scientists couldn't get to grow.
This message was edited Feb 24, 2012 8:57 PM
I think this was just one example of the amazing things that Tissue Culture can make possible. Hopefully, by restoring extinct prehistoric plants (or animals), we will not create a troublesome invasive species.
ZM
I think it's amazing and they should try to introduce it back where it grows wild.