I'm currently growing Brassica rapa (Wisconsin Fast Plants) for research and teaching. For some reason this current batch has really dark stigmas instead of the yellow/green I usually see. This is the same light shelf, same pots, same trays, same seed source as previous sets but this time the stigmas are dark. The plants have consistent illumination and appear generally healthy.
The only new factor is the batch of soil, sunshine mix #4.
I am currently using some of these plants for Agrobacterium dips (floral transformation) but even my WT plants (no bacteria, no dips) show this same trait.
Has anyone seen this dark stigma trait before? If so, what does it mean? Is it just a random quirk? Did the plants still make seeds?
If the stigmas were really this color all the time it would be much easier to have my lab students perform their cross pollinations.
I just did the first set of pollinations today (hence the WT plants as a pollen source) so I don't yet know if the flowers will produce seeds.
Amy Klocko Okay, maybe nothing is wrong I know from gardening that most Brassica plant varieties avoid self-pollination and are almost always hybrids with slightly differing gene expression, hybrid vigor, etc. So maybe your batch just has black stigmas. Hope this helped a little
Prof Yukna
These are a standard stock set from a stock center and I've been using them for a few years now, seems odd to have a new phenotype pop up in all the plants. Still, this gives me a good idea, I'll contact the stock center.
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