Ethylene Gas to Promote Seedling Growth

Discussion in 'Advanced Growing Techniques' started by Storm Crow, Nov 11, 2023.

  1. Thought some of you might find this interesting. Bananas, cantaloupe, apples, tomatoes and avocados, all give off ethylene gas naturally.

    Exposing plants to an unusual chemical early on may bolster their growth and help feed the world
    Exposing plants to an unusual chemical early on may bolster their growth and help feed the world

    Just like any other organism, plants can get stressed. Usually it’s conditions like
    heat and drought that lead to this stress, and when they’re stressed, plants might not grow as large or produce as much. This can be a problem for farmers, so many scientists have tried genetically modifying plants to be more resilient.

    But plants modified for higher crop yields tend to have a lower stress tolerance because they put more energy into growth than into protection against stresses. Similarly, improving the ability of plants to survive stress often results in plants that produce less because they put more energy into protection than into growth. This conundrum makes it difficult to improve crop production.

    I have been studying how the plant hormone ethylene regulates growth and stress responses in plants. In a study published in July 2023, my lab made an unexpected and exciting observation. We found that when seeds are germinating in darkness, as they usually are underground, adding ethylene can increase both their growth and stress tolerance.

    Ethylene is a plant hormone
    Plants can’t move around, so they can’t avoid stressful environmental conditions like heat and drought. They take in a variety of signals from their environment such as light and temperature that shape how they grow, develop and deal with stressful conditions. As part of this regulation, plants make various hormones that are part of a regulatory network that allows them to adapt to environmental conditions.

    Ethylene was first discovered as a gaseous plant hormone over 100 years ago. Since then, research has shown that all land plants that have been studied make ethylene. In addition to controlling growth and responding to stress, it is also involved in other processes such as causing leaves to change color in the fall and stimulating fruit ripening.

    Ethylene as a way to ‘prime’ plants
    My lab focuses on how plants and bacteria sense ethylene and on how it interacts with other hormone pathways to regulate plant development. While conducting this research, my group made an accidental discovery.

    We’d been running an experiment where we had seeds germinating in a dark room. Seed germination is a critical period in a plant’s life when, under favorable conditions, the seed will transition from being dormant into a seedling.

    For this experiment, we’d exposed the seeds to ethylene gas for several days to see what effect this might have. We’d then removed the ethylene. Normally, this is where the experiment would have ended. But after gathering data on these seedlings, we transferred them to a light cart. This is not something we usually do, but we wanted to grow the plants to adulthood so we could get seeds for future experiments.

    Several days after placing the seedlings under light, some lab members made the unexpected and startling observation that the plants briefly gassed with ethylene were much larger. They had larger leaves as well as longer and more complex root systems than plants that had not been exposed to ethylene. These plants continued growing at a faster rate throughout their whole lifetime.

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    The plant on the left was not primed with ethylene, while the plant on the right was. Both plants are the same age. Binder lab, University of Tennessee, Knoxville (snipped)

    For those of you who enjoy studies, here's the original study-
    Ethylene-mediated metabolic priming increases photosynthesis and metabolism to enhance plant growth and stress tolerance
    Ethylene-mediated metabolic priming increases photosynthesis and metabolism to enhance plant growth and stress tolerance

    Granny :wave:
     
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  2. I believe banana peels give off ethylene gas.. I know that they’re good to use and late flower as an organic amendment


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    This is my first organic live soil grow, and it went amazing. I’m chopping on Monday.
     
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  3. Ethylene Gas to Promote Seedling Growth and other cool stuff (WIKI) see it as a hormone
    • Seedling triple response, thickening and shortening of hypocotyl with pronounced apical hook.[29]
    • Stimulation of Arabidopsis hypocotyl elongation [30]
    • In pollination, when the pollen reaches the stigma, the precursor of the ethylene, ACC, is secreted to the petal, the ACC releases ethylene with ACC oxidase.
    • Stimulates leaf senescence
    • Controls root growth inhibition in compacted soils [31]
    • Stimulates senescence of mature xylem cells in preparation for plant use
    • Induces leaf abscission[32]
    • Induces seed germination
    • Induces root hair growth — increasing the efficiency of water and mineral absorption
    • Induces the growth of adventitious roots during flooding
    • Stimulates survival under low-oxygen conditions (hypoxia) in submerged plant tissues [33][34][35][36]
    • Controls adaptive Translation (biology) dynamics during plant submergence [37][38]
    • Stimulates epinasty — leaf petiole grows out, leaf hangs down and curls into itself
    • Stimulates fruit ripening
    • Induces a climacteric rise in respiration in some fruit which causes a release of additional ethylene.
    • Affects gravitropism
    • Stimulates nutation
    • Inhibits stem growth and stimulates stem and cell broadening and lateral branch growth outside of seedling stage (see Hyponastic response)
    • Interference with auxin transport (with high auxin concentrations)
    • Inhibits shoot growth and stomatal closing except in some water plants or habitually submerged species such as rice, Callitriche (e.g., C. platycarpa), and Rumex, where the opposite occurs to achieve an adaptive escape from submergence.[39]
    • Induces flowering in pineapples
    • Inhibits short day induced flower initiation in Pharbitus nil[40] and Chrysanthemum morifolium[41
     
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  4. Interesting. I know ethylene speeds up the repining process of fruit.
     
  5. So vee, should I throw some banana peels in my new veg box? I’m driving, but I want to read this later.


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  6. I was gonna reply to granny with such a comment ...lol
    a bag of apples or bananas left in the grow room Late flower will pay off well IMO, leave them up high assuming the gas is heavier than air

    I follow this close as theirs just got to be a way of suppressing sex development with weed other than using Colloidal silver or STS, something really simple like right in my face and non chemical

    Right now my babe is trying to get unripe kivi fruit and very green to go ripe by having them in a bag of apples, she can be cheap at times

    Commercial growers of bromeliads, including pineapple plants, use ethylene to induce flowering. Plants can be induced to flower either by treatment with the gas in a chamber, or by placing a banana peel next to the plant in an enclosed area.(WIKI)
     
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  7. crazy thought maybe we can get the weed plants to suppress its E-gas, if their was something better the plant could use that we add in place of ethylene, but similar CONTROLLABLE results? anyone?
     
  8. #8 buckethead129, Nov 26, 2023
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2023
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    I left the light a little bit too low at the beginning, and one is just very stunted for some reason But two are on crutches- the stunted one was even that way coming out of the rapid rooter, it was like three days behind all the rest- first time using rapid routers and I loved it just planted into solos like yesterday or two days ago. Three of them are strong great. I had to put crutches on just because it’s stretched out a little too much at the beginning- temp n humidity all good - all looking good though next run - 2x HEKA 2x glueystone, 1 more headband 99 (brothers Grimm seeds)


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  9. I have about 70 over ripe apples in my grow room as an experiment on flowering autos,
    difficult to tell right now, but does smell nice ...lol
     

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