Albino Antho

[PaddyMc]

I posted about this elsewhere, but thought I'd share it here too.
I had a cool surprise at the greenhouse the other day. Some of my newly
sprouted Hippie Zebra x Purple DragonF4's appear to be albino's, except for beautiful purple stem and leaf antho -





Has anyone here seen this before. I generally don't have much hope for their survival, but we'll see.

For reference, here's the fruit the seeds came out of (L 9-16) -

[KarenO]

Hmm that is odd indeed. No chlorophyll? Let us know what happens,
KarenO

[PaddyMc]

Originally Posted by KarenO

Hmm that is odd indeed. No chlorophyll? Let us know what happens,
KarenO

Yup, no chlorophyll is concerning. I'm keeping an eye on them.
According to TGRC there are 4 genes for albino cotyledons, only
one of them is listed as "lethal", so I'm holding out some hope.

[heirloomtomaguy]

Those look awesome. Hopefully they grow well without any signs of chlorophyll. Keep us updated with pics

[NarnianGarden]

Wow, what a beautiful fruit color !! I am sure if it gets stabilized, people will flock to buy the seds.

[Starlight]

How cool!!! Gotta love all the curves mother nature throws at us. : )

I've seen albino's last for several weeks until they run out of energy from the seed coat and then they croak. The thing that will be interesting to see is, if they live, what the first true set of leaves will look like. Since you have the antho color in the stems and it looks like a faint bit of it in the cotyledons they may just make it. Possibly the question will be whether or not the antho coloring will be able to produce enough chlorophyll to keep the seedlings alive.

I hope they continue to thrive for you.

[MarinaRussian]

Paddy, your albino seedlings are very neat looking I really hope they survive.

[nicollas]

Maybe you could try to graft one into a normal looking plant (leaving some green leaves) to see what would happen

[dfollett]

I hope they survive. Interesting there are that many. The only albinos I've seen lasted about six days - until the energy from the seed itself ran out. It didn't last long enough to be able to graft. Does the antho have the capability of producing energy like chlorophyll? I hope they do, but I'd bet against it.

As many as there are, it looks like you have a recessive gene for the condition rather than a mutation.

[psa]

Carotenoids can participate in recapture of photons, but even they tend to be dependent on chlorophyll for electron transfer to produce energy. Anthocyanins do not generally participate in photosynthesis at all, except in screening and scattering light.

Very pretty seedlings. It would be cool if the true leaves developed with some chlorophyll so that they could survive.

[NarnianGarden]

Keep us posted on the process..

[nicollas]

Any news on those albinos ?

[StrongPlant]

Man,I love albino plants.I hope with genetic engineering someday someone will make ones that can survive so I can finaly grow snow-white beautiful plants in my north-facing lightless room xD

[clkeiper]

I started some cherry tomatoes this Spring and I had one that started that was that lovely lavender color. as soon as I moved the tray to the greenhouse it withered and died. I was sad. I wanted to see what it would do. I will see if I can find the photo I took of it and post it. it is on my phone20170329_122338-1.jpg somewhere if I kept it.

[gssgarden]

That's cool!!!

First time I saw that. Keep us posted!

Greg