Artificial Seeds
Presenter: Neville Passmore
This is a story straight out of science fiction. Neville takes a look at how artificial leaves of Australian native plants are produced in a laboratory and are used to make a significant impact in bush regeneration.
Doctor Maggie Penaia, a research scientist that is creating some truly unusual seeds at the laboratory at Kings Park in Western Australia. The seeds are being created without the usual combination of male and female flower parts being involved.
The first step is to make micro cuttings, which could be from a part of the leaf, the stem or even the roots. In nature, the cells are programmed to continue being the same thing. In other words, you take a cutting of the leaf and it grows as a leaf.
By applying growth regulators the cells appear to go into a stressed state and they start to produce embryos. The big pay off in this technology is numbers; one micro cutting can spin off three to four hundred embryos. Ten of the Petri dishes can contain up to 40,000 potential plants.
The next step is to dry the dishes out and covered with a jelly that hardens to become the artificial seeds. The mix is designed specifically to go into a particular area of bush regeneration. The rain comes along and dissolves the coating which actually becomes a source of nutrient for the baby plant inside.
This can potentially cut the cost of supplying plants for replanting projects for between ten and fifty cents each. Compare this to cuttings of grown plants that range from $1 to $5 dollars each.
Apart from cost savings another great reason for creating artificial seeds is when working with rare and endangered species. Scientists can go out into the fields and take micro cutting from a couple of individuals and hopefully produce hundreds or even thousands of plants potentially saving the species from extinction.
Scientists are currently working on rushes and sedges for mine rehabilitation work, in particular a few lepidosperma species and also blue bush for bold park rehabilitation work.
Artificial seeds of the difficult to propagate blue bush are now being used in bush regeneration. The goal is to put some of the biodiversity back in.
This is a story straight out of science fiction. Neville takes a look at how artificial leaves of Australian native plants are produced in a laboratory and are used to make a significant impact in bush regeneration.
Doctor Maggie Penaia, a research scientist that is creating some truly unusual seeds at the laboratory at Kings Park in Western Australia. The seeds are being created without the usual combination of male and female flower parts being involved.
The first step is to make micro cuttings, which could be from a part of the leaf, the stem or even the roots. In nature, the cells are programmed to continue being the same thing. In other words, you take a cutting of the leaf and it grows as a leaf.
By applying growth regulators the cells appear to go into a stressed state and they start to produce embryos. The big pay off in this technology is numbers; one micro cutting can spin off three to four hundred embryos. Ten of the Petri dishes can contain up to 40,000 potential plants.
The next step is to dry the dishes out and covered with a jelly that hardens to become the artificial seeds. The mix is designed specifically to go into a particular area of bush regeneration. The rain comes along and dissolves the coating which actually becomes a source of nutrient for the baby plant inside.
This can potentially cut the cost of supplying plants for replanting projects for between ten and fifty cents each. Compare this to cuttings of grown plants that range from $1 to $5 dollars each.
Apart from cost savings another great reason for creating artificial seeds is when working with rare and endangered species. Scientists can go out into the fields and take micro cutting from a couple of individuals and hopefully produce hundreds or even thousands of plants potentially saving the species from extinction.
Scientists are currently working on rushes and sedges for mine rehabilitation work, in particular a few lepidosperma species and also blue bush for bold park rehabilitation work.
Artificial seeds of the difficult to propagate blue bush are now being used in bush regeneration. The goal is to put some of the biodiversity back in.
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