What color offspring would these produce?

[keithp2012]

If you cross pollinated these two cacti, what color would the offspring be? Could they be yellow and pink bicolor?

[DaveW]

Of course you have to flower them first. However I presume it would be the same as Mendelian ratios for peas or flower colour depending on what body colour is dominant, though you may get variegated ones too?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesi ... nce2.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~mcclean/pl ... endel1.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[iann]

Unless the plants have been damaged to produce that colour, in which case you may get nothing or entirely normal plants. My vote is for nothing, even if you can get them to flower. Try it with the semi-green variegated ones instead, I know they can produce viable seed.

[keithp2012]

I know they can produce seed pods, but yes is the seed viable! If it is, being both colors are recessive, perhaps 50% mutant 50% normal, or 50% variegated 50% normal? I read the original breeders found the odd color as a seed mutant, thus why they are sold from offsets, I imagine from seed these colors are recessive and rare.

[iann]

I've crossed plants with two different recessive traits and got ... nothing. Well, one muddy might-be-something and a bunch of not-quite-anythings. If the genes producing the two freaky colours are not the same recessive gene, then none of the offspring will have a combination of two of the same recessive gene.

[keithp2012]

I've crossed plants with two different recessive traits and got ... nothing. Well, one muddy might-be-something and a bunch of not-quite-anythings. If the genes producing the two freaky colours are not the same recessive gene, then none of the offspring will have a combination of two of the same recessive gene.

Would anyone know more about this? These are the grafted Hibotan cacti, very common, perhaps someone already tried this and could share the results.

[DaveW]

Even if you get viable seed the chance of producing something worthwhile are pretty slim. Those producing the novelty Astrophytum's set the seed and raise the plants by the thousand in order to only select an odd one or two significant variations. Likewise the rose breeders discard hundreds of seedlings in order to find one worthwhile new rose. Don't expect to set a hundred seeds and get something worthwhile. Professional hybridisers grow hundreds of plants to flowering size and then keep re-crossing them and it could take a decade of doing this to get something really distinct. You would be very lucky if you obtained it in your first sowing. If you have the room to accommodate so many seedlings and the time to devote to it and you can obtain viable seed by all means try it.

"A hybridizer may look over as many as a hundred thousand seedlings each year, with 99 percent discarded at some point during the first growing season."

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/arch ... rance.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[keithp2012]

I found an answer! http://www.lapshin.org/cultivar/paper/articl-e.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[DaveW]

Your plants are chlorophyll deficient so would not survive on their own roots as the original mother plant was grafted at match head size before it died since it could not produce it's own chlorophyll but relied on that from the stock. Note he says:-

"As I have already mentioned I try to grow all the variegated plants on own roots. They grow slowly during their first year. They form their color. At the 3rd or 4th month of their life the color gets stable. Before it they are white-green. Then they grow further but depending on the size of the colored part. The larger it is the slower they grow."

Therefore his plants were not totally devoid of chlorophyll. He goes on to say:-

"I examine and sort out seedlings daily. Colored not grafted seedlings do not live more than 7-10 days. They happened to grow till a year but later died anyway. I often graft white and pink seedlings on one-year-old seedlings of Myrtilocactus. As for yellowish plants or those with spots, I prick them out and plant into a pot with soil to grow them on own roots.

I would like to mention the nature of seedlings. The seedlings of hybrid plants seeds are the first to germinate. It looks like they all are colored. But in a couple of days 40-50 % of them grow green. The first "wave" of seedlings appears in 10-15 days. Then there is a pause and 10 days later the rest of the seeds (of normal plants) germinate. The percentage of germinating and colored seedlings is not permanent and depends mainly on the parents."

Neither does he say how many seedlings he is raising to obtain any significant variations

[keithp2012]

Even if you get viable seed the chance of producing something worthwhile are pretty slim. Those producing the novelty Astrophytum's set the seed and raise the plants by the thousand in order to only select an odd one or two significant variations. Likewise the rose breeders discard hundreds of seedlings in order to find one worthwhile new rose. Don't expect to set a hundred seeds and get something worthwhile. Professional hybridisers grow hundreds of plants to flowering size and then keep re-crossing them and it could take a decade of doing this to get something really distinct. You would be very lucky if you obtained it in your first sowing. If you have the room to accommodate so many seedlings and the time to devote to it and you can obtain viable seed by all means try it.

"A hybridizer may look over as many as a hundred thousand seedlings each year, with 99 percent discarded at some point during the first growing season."

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/arch ... rance.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I got lucky, out of 50 seeds I got two variegated cactus seedlings, one parent was yellow grafted the other plain green.