Dear Plant-Eders,
We've been doing a mung-bean adventitious-root experiment for years
now in our first-year biology course, and this year for the first
time we have NO adventitious roots, even in the water control
(usually it develops a few very long adventitious roots, quite
according to Hoyle. Or perhaps Went.). We do see some plant death in
the highest auxin concentrations (we usually do, so this suggests
that our auxin is active), but not one single jar has even a hint of
an adventitious root.
Suggestions? Only thing I can think of is that there's something
peculiar with the water -- we did have an E. coli alarm a few weeks
ago and so they spiked our well with chlorine, but we used RO water
with a substantial charcoal filter on the end of the RO machine,
which should have removed most of the chlorine.
We're stumped. I thought I remembered a posting here a while ago
about some plant species that had had auxin response bred out of
them, but I couldn't find it in the archives; are maybe the newest
mung-bean seeds are not auxin responsive? But then, why wouldn't we
have roots on the control?
-W2
William E. Williams <mailto:WEWilliams at smcm.edu>
Professor of Biology
Saint Mary's College of Maryland
18952 E Fisher Rd, Saint Marys City, MD 20686
(240)895-4365
