Making Better Corn (Or Not Corn) With X-Rays!

[gigaboom2]

My plan is essentially to get something that has at least one benefit over the usual stock. Not due to of the direct effect of radiation, (shown in legitimate studies over 60 years ago to not be good) but due to the mutation.

The Plan:

1. Grow some corn.
   
2. When corn flowers, harvest pollen, irradiate pollen with my trusty rusty x-ray tube.
   
3. Pollinate corn with irradiated (and hopefully beautifully mutated) pollen.
   
4. Take corn that grows with irradiated pollen, and plant it.
   
5. Let second generation corn grow.
   
6. Notice if all plants have developed a similar trait. (ie. stunted growth, leaves stained red, premature death, growing human faces) If so, this trait is to be ignored because it is most likely directly due to the radiation, and not all plants mutating the same way.
   
7. Irradiate pollen from promising plants.
   
8. Repeat steps 3-7.
   

My question to you is, do you see any problems with this? Do you think that I should change something? Do you think I should scrap this plan in fear of me creating Godzilla? Do you think I will eventually grow an apple?

[Kohai_Khaos]

My plan is essentially to get something that has at least one benefit over the usual stock.

A fine enough intention, but there are some issues here.

Not due to of the direct effect of radiation, (shown in legitimate studies over 60 years ago to not be good) but due to the mutation.

1. Show me some studies.

2. The reason ionizing radiation causes changes to the biochemistry of living things on a real scale, such as cancer, is because it causes mutations. Every one of the issues caused by radiation is due to negative mutations. It's entirely possible for radiation to cause positive mutations, though it's comparatively uncommon, which is why you do this with large amounts of plants to set off a trait you want, and then try to breed out any negative side effects from the population.

The Plan:

1. Grow some corn.
   
2. When corn flowers, harvest pollen, irradiate pollen with my trusty rusty x-ray tube.
   
3. Pollinate corn with irradiated (and hopefully beautifully mutated) pollen.
   
4. Take corn that grows with irradiated pollen, and plant it.
   
5. Let second generation corn grow.
   
6. Notice if all plants have developed a similar trait. (ie. stunted growth, leaves stained red, premature death, growing human faces) If so, this trait is to be ignored because it is most likely directly due to the radiation, and not all plants mutating the same way.
   
7. Irradiate pollen from promising plants.
   
8. Repeat steps 3-7.
   

My question to you is, do you see any problems with this? Do you think that I should change something? Do you think I should scrap this plan in fear of me creating Godzilla? Do you think I will eventually grow an apple?

People already do this, actually. They've been doing this far longer than GMOs were a thing. Since the 1920s, actually: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding

[gigaboom2]

1. Show me some studies.

Here are two: http://www.plantphysiol.org/content/36/5/566.full.pdf http://www.agron.missouri.edu/mnl/73/09lysikov.html

2. The reason ionizing radiation causes changes to the biochemistry of living things on a real scale, such as cancer, is because it causes mutations. Every one of the issues caused by radiation is due to negative mutations. It's entirely possible for radiation to cause positive mutations, though it's comparatively uncommon, which is why you do this with large amounts of plants to set off a trait you want, and then try to breed out any negative side effects from the population.

This is mostly true, but say that the radiation affects the chemical makeup on the endosperm, this could have a significant effect on something so small and delicate. Something could probably be altered by radiation that does not have to do with the DNA, but it would be smaller and less common. (I'm not a biologist or a chemist, so I may be wrong) However you are correct for this case as only the pollen will be altered.

People already do this, actually. They've been doing this far longer than GMOs were a thing. Since the 1920s, actually: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding

I know, but I want to do it myself and see what I can get.

Edited April 13, 2015 by gigaboom2

[Jovus]

The biggest two problems I see are that you'd need a lot of corn to see positive effects (since the vast, vast majority of mutations are negative) and that the actual mutation effects of X-rays (or other radiation) while present, are fairly small compared to other factors (like replication errors and sexual recombination).

Still, it's certainly a possible strategy.

[Kohai_Khaos]

Here are two: http://www.plantphysiol.org/content/36/5/566.full.pdf http://www.agron.missouri.edu/mnl/73/09lysikov.html

The first one notes a positive overall change at a certain range of radiation, and you will note that the second one sticks to that range-ish with its radiation dosage. This is because that is just where it happens to be the positive point. I can't tell how big the scale of the first paper is, however, since they don't seem to note it anywhere, so for all I know that could have a depressingly low sample size that has to deal with chance getting in the way (the second study notes that only about 1-5% of the ones they made actually had mutations at all, and not many of those were favorable; it takes a huge amount of corn to get the mutations you want. This is still much faster than non-irradiated breeding.)

But I'm not a farmer, so what do I know.

Well, I do know that you will need a lot of corn.

[RainDreamer]

Just go ahead. Although instead of trying to figure out when you can get a positive trait, figure out radiation-resistant traits. We are going to need that knowledge if we plan to go to Mars and grow some food on the way.

[lajoswinkler]

What you're gonna do is what agriculture has been doing since the nuclear age started. Basically everything we eat has been made like this. Crapload of subjects (corn, for example), blind genome bombarding with ionizing rays, planting, multiplying, choosing the tiny proportion which is not useless freak plants. Rinse and repeat.

Incredible damage to the genomes has been done this way. Deletions of whole cromosomes, destruction of genes... But it gave us food.

Nowdays we have way better method. Genetic modification.

But by all means, try it. I would.