A different Valentine's Gift!

[Lesley Cox]

Well I guess I too had better apologise, for calling someone - anyone - who pays that kind of money for a little bulb, a t**t. It was meant tongue in cheek, a joke and wasn't intended to cause offence, which it apparently did. As usual, I forgot to put the appropriate smiley at the end of my post. It has been suggested that I may be offended at evolutionplantsman's response to my post. I wasn't, and in fact had not even noticed it until it was pointed out.

edit by maggi : I think it is fair to point out that at the time when comments were being made about the size of the price paid, people were not commenting about the actual purchaser - who was then unknown- but about the shock at the possibility of someone paying that price for a Valentine's gift for a lover - when there is every possibility that such a relationship might not be permanent - there was no malice intended and I have yet to hear from anyone who does not regard the story of Ms Mabbs and her gift for her Father as a touching tale of  familial affection.

[Brian Ellis]

I took offence on behalf of the wonderful lady who won the auction, who isn't a galanthophile, had never bought a snowdrop in her life until last week, spent a great deal of money on an immensely romantic gesture and doesn't deserve to be pilloried on a forum she's never heard of.

Having heard the full story at the weekend Tom, I think that those who heard you speak would all agree that it was immensely romantic and that G.'Peter Gooding' has one of the most heartwarming and poignant stories of any attached to it.  I hope the story is not lost over the years and the snowdrop does well for them.  Thanks for a most enjoyable talk (and we could hear you at the back ).

[Martin Baxendale]

What is chipping and twin scaling if not a sort of micropropagation? As a small specialist nurseryman I am ambivalent about propagating plants up in such large numbers because at the end of the day it actually reduces the 'value' of plants and makes it harder for small scale growers to do their own thing. On the other hand I spent amongst the most enjoyable time of my life working at John Innes where scientists were researching just these sorts of things, but primarily for improving the understanding and yields of food crops, and quality of husbandry (isn't that a good word when you view it's different meanings!). It seems to me we just all do our best on the basis of our own experience, and getting people together works best of all, which seems to have happened here in some curious way?

Indeed, Tim, chipping and twin scaling can be seen as a kind of micropropagation, probably somewhere in between microprop and a more traditional propagation form like taking cuttings, as it usually involves taking bulb material with a bit of the basal plate, which equates to the stem of a non-bulbous plant.

Recently people have of course found that bulblets will grow from pieces of bulb material other than a fragment of basal plate - i.e. further up the chip or twin scale, or on rings or tops of bulbs with no basal plate attached at all. Which suggests that full micropropagation, using much smaller amounts of bulb material without necessarily any basal plate is feasible. And some experimentation has been done on that. But as far as I know there is no commercial set-up operational as yet.

As to whether it helps the nurserymen, I suppose yes it's swings and roundabouts. There would be trade offs - prices would come down but then more people would be able to buy. As Joe Sharman apparently once said (and I apologise if I've heard it wrong and am misquoting him) "we don't need people buying more snowdrops so much as we need more people buying snowdrops".

The scenario I was contemplating was a microprop lab somewhere developing protocols for galanthus microprop and offering a service to nurserymen to microprop rare varieties for them, which the nurserymen then sell to their customers. Not one big nursery cornering the market by developing microprop just for their own exclusive use.

It's not the whole answer, I agree. But it could be part of the answer to the shortage of bulbs of new varieties available to buy and help both the nurserymen and the customers.

 

[uvularia]

Indeed, Tim, chipping and twin scaling can be seen as a kind of micropropagation, probably somewhere in between microprop and a more traditional propagation form like taking cuttings, as it usually involves taking bulb material with a bit of the basal plate, which equates to the stem of a non-bulbous plant.

Recently people have of course found that bulblets will grow from pieces of bulb material other than a fragment of basal plate - i.e. further up the chip or twin scale, or on rings or tops of bulbs with no basal plate attached at all. Which suggests that full micropropagation, using much smaller amounts of bulb material without necessarily any basal plate is feasible. And some experimentation has been done on that. But as far as I know there is no commercial set-up operational as yet.

As to whether it helps the nurserymen, I suppose yes it's swings and roundabouts. There would be trade offs - prices would come down but then more people would be able to buy. As Joe Sharman apparently once said (and I apologise if I've heard it wrong and am misquoting him) "we don't need people buying more snowdrops so much as we need more people buying snowdrops".

The scenario I was contemplating was a microprop lab somewhere developing protocols for galanthus microprop and offering a service to nurserymen to microprop rare varieties for them, which the nurserymen then sell to their customers. Not one big nursery cornering the market by developing microprop just for their own exclusive use.

It's not the whole answer, I agree. But it could be part of the answer to the shortage of bulbs of new varieties available to buy and help both the nurserymen and the customers.

 

This does beg the question, as to whether people have tried to micro-prop various Galanthus? Did I hear a story about Wendy's Gold being nearly lost to micro-prop or did I get wrong end of the stick?

[Martin Baxendale]

Most of the original stock of Wendy's Gold was lost in The Netherlands during propagation, due to fungal disease I think. It's possible they were trying micro-prop or they may just have been twin scaling. Not sure.

Mark Smyth was keeping us updated a while back on attempts to microprop Wendy's Gold in Northern Ireland but we've heard nothing recently about how successful it was.

[Alan_b]

I have also heard it said that the Dutch company that bought 27 of the 30 original bulbs of Wendy's Gold went through some takeover or structural change which caused interest in the project to be lost and that is most probably why fungal disease was allowed to take hold.   

[Sean Fox]

If chipping causes some stability issues in Galanthus such as South Hayes (which can revert back to almost white) then surely micropropagation would cause further issues?

[Martin Baxendale]

If chipping causes some stability issues in Galanthus such as South Hayes (which can revert back to almost white) then surely micropropagation would cause further issues?

That's one of the issues that needs to be looked at by experimentation. But I think the problem with South Hayes was down to it being some kind of a chimera. Snowdrops with the kind of markings found in Trym, Trym offspring and South Hayes might not be suitable for microprop, but snowdrops without those kinds of outer markings could be fine. Virescent snowdrops, for example, could be okay, as would yellows and most other more normal types.

[Sean Fox]

 I totally agree Martin that a lot of experimentation is still needed. No doubt there's plenty going on but it seems to be a slow process. One thing's for certain, we won't know unless we try. I can't remember who, but I'm sure one of our Dutch friends was doing lots of work gathering data on the contribution of viruses to variations in snowdrops, particularly to one's with green outers. There seemed to be a good correlation between the two. But it may not be mutually exclusive and may in fact be a number of factors, including chimera. Time may tell.
 
I do hope that T&M are trying to micropropogate Elizabeth Harrison and it wasn't just a cheap (relatively speaking) publicity stunt. It would be great if this snowdrop could become available to the wider public as it's a beauty and a very robust, garden worthy snowdrop. It would be good if we could get some feedback on that, if anyone has a contact within T&M?

[Alan_b]

Narcissus tete-a-tete is produced in vast quantities commercially.  I found a report investigating its suitability for commercial growth in the UK here: http://www.hdc.org.uk/sites/default/files/research_papers/BOF%2023%20Final%20Report.pdf   Tete-a-tete bulbs are comparable in size to those of a snowdrop so I don't see why it would not be possible to do the same with snowdrops. 

[mark smyth]

It was a lab off New Forge Lane in Belfast that was micro propping Wendys Gold for the Dutch. I have lost all photos except for one that I took on my visit there. It was amazing to see 100s if not 1000s of clear plastic pots filled with the bulbs in the walk in 'incubator'. I have sent several emails to the lab to find out what happened but I have never got a reply

This photo, of a pot I was given, dates back to March 2006. Mine died from a fungal attack probably due to me taking the lid off for the photo. I also have a thought that I dropped the pot

[Sean Fox]

 

This photo, of a pot I was given, dates back to March 2006. Mine died from a fungal attack probably due to me taking the lid off for the photo. I also have a thought that I dropped the pot

Lol unlucky Mark   

[Martin Baxendale]

A Dutch company may now be bulking them up via chipping, having obtained enough starting stock by microprop (which should also have cleaned up the bulbs disease wise).

[Maggi Young]

"The world's most valuable snowdrop is now formally Galanthus 'Peter Gooding', named for her father by Caroline Mabbs".

[Alan_b]

I've stared very hard at the picture in the newspaper article but I cannot for the life of me actually see the snowdrop.  Is it there Maggi?