Potato leaf vs regular leaf

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by WVTomatoMan

Carolyn,

I've been meaning to ask, but I keep forgetting. Do you happen to know if a mule (aka bull) plant would be considered a spontaneous mutation or a somatic mutation? Do you want me to guess?

I'm going to embarrass myself and go ahead and guess. My first guess would be spontaneous mutation. But, I have reservations with that because I suspect more than one gene might be involved. Therefore, I'm going to go with somatic mutation and that's my final answer.


Randy

Randy, I've grown several mule plants and they are normal in every way except they don't form blossoms.

Now that could be due to a seed DNA mutation in either a gene leading up to the formation of either the male OR female strutures of the blossom or it could be the same for a somatic mutation, except if it were a somatic mutation it would only occur on the branch where that mutation took place and blossoms should be fine on the rest of the plant.

And for a seed DNA mutation all it would take is a single spontaneous mutation in a gene involved in EITHER the female or male blossom structures, b'c either one would lead to no blossom.

To further complicate things a bit, there were several of us involved in working with what was called a Yellow Prue and I'd suggested that if it were a somatic mutation that mutation would have to occurred at the very base of the plant. As it turned out the person who found it was wrong so I never had to think about it again.

And in the fields of hybrids of my farmer friend Charlie one could always spot a mule b'c those plants were much bigger than the others that had blossoms.

Well I remember having two plants of Limmony out there and one plant was a mule and the other was just fine.

And that's my guess as well, meaning probably a seed DNA mutation b'c a somatic mutation would NOT affect blossom fo\r mation all over the plant, just on the branch where that somatic mutation took place.

[nancyruhl]

I tried to post a picture of Granny Cantrell growout a couple of weeks ago, but couldn't get the picture to load. I will be sticking with the potato leaf version. Smaller seed locules and denser flesh.

[dice]

You could give it a new name, since it is different than the original
Granny Cantrell. New Cantrell, maybe.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by dice

You could give it a new name, since it is different than the original
Granny Cantrell. New Cantrell, maybe.

I've got a bit of a problem with renaming any variety.

If anything rename it Granny Cantrell Potato Leaf if the saved seeds give all PL foliage.

And once again it shows that a mutation from RL to PL is NOT a single mutation b'c more than one trait is affected, and in many other posts I've discussed how that can come about.

The example I've usually given is Cherokee Purple where there are two PL versions, one called Cherokee Purple Potato Leaf found by Jere Gettle and then Spudakee attributed to Bill M, aka Spud.

There are quite a few folks who have grown all three in the same season which is what one has to do in order to make direct comparisons.

Some find that the two PL versions are not the same and some find that neither of the PL versions are the same as the original RL.

The differences found relate to taste and yield, but not usually fruit traits like size, color and shape.