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[GrowerAndaShower]

Hey all, been quite a while since I've been around,(skip to the bold below for the science part) life has been busy and I got out of the hobby for a bit(had to move to an RV over the winter last year, and not much made it through the unstable heat. Even before that, relationships and family issues took a lot of time from my hobby).

All is good now though, I've still got a few cacti and just added cuscoensis, bridgesii, bridgesii montrose, and a few hybrids to my cacti collection; Also just re-aquired a viridis, got a caapi cutting for the first time, bought a few phalaris grass clones(AQ1 and Big Medicine); and have Salvia, Kratom, and lophophora diffusa coming in a few pending trades from a reddit trade forum.

Anyway, enough with the update

Been reading through an old thread on Shaman-Australis forums about psychotria viridis IDs, and the sources of the cultivars in the member's various collections.

In this thread, there's some talk of Psychotria spp. "Nexus"(That's how that's used, right? spp and quotes for a hybrid?), a hybrid of carthagenesis and viridis. There's talk of not being able to get seeds, and some discussion of seeds being produced but unviable.

I can find that carthagenesis has a diploid chromosome count of 22. I cannot find anything on viridis, but my understanding is that "Nexus"'s chromosome count would be the average of cartha and viridis(am I wrong here?). My understanding is also that if this is an odd number, breeding is unlikely at all, but IDK...

I was just thinking it would be interesting to find the chromosome count and try to find another psychotria it might be able to set seed with. Maybe not from cartha or viridis, but possibly something like elata? I have no idea where to even look for this type of info. Anyone here have any thoughts?

Another option is to try to create some polyploid cells(colchicine or , and try tissue culturing. Maybe the polyploid plants could breed with themselves, or the original nexus.

Why do I want to do all this? I'm not sure, but it sounds like fun and I'm getting back into my garden. Diversity and difficult projects are both things I like. I realize the farther I get from viridis the less likely I am to have a high alkaloid %, but that's not really my concern. I just want to see if I can do it...

Obviously I'd need to get a nexus first, but I know they're around and I'm sure someone would trade me one for something eventually, especially since all I need is a leaf. I'll worry about that later though, for now, I'm curious if anyone has the info.

TL/DR: I want the chromosome count for any and all Psychotria species you might have info on, but viridis and "nexus" in particular.

[ONandONandON]

"Nexus"(That's how that's used, right? spp and quotes for a hybrid?), a hybrid of carthagenesis and viridis. There's talk of not being able to get seeds, and some discussion of seeds being produced but unviable.

...if i remember correctly, p.'nexus' is the name for the hybrid 'cartha X viridis'....
i have a p.nexus with green berries, i don;t see why they wouldn't be viable after ripening,
..that talk of unviable seeds is sometimes really just because of unfresh seeds.

I was just thinking it would be interesting to find the chromosome count and try to find another psychotria it might be able to set seed with. Maybe not from cartha or viridis, but possibly something like elata? I have no idea where to even look for this type of info. Anyone here have any thoughts?

https://herbalistics.com.au/page/2/?s=psychotria&post_type=product
..has a large selection of psychotria hybrids, i believe they cross-bred many themselves..
unfortunately they don't ship outside Australia, maybe someone in AU could arrange a group buy or something?

[Mangrove]

Would it be possible to have it's genome & karyotype sequenced/analyzed by a mail-order DNA testing company? If so, then it would likely not be that expensive to get results. Then again, I don't know how sequencing a karyotype compares with that of sequencing a genome...

Regards to getting source material for analysis, you could trim off the tip of a leaf & have more than enough genetic material for analysis whilst having more than enough leaf to propagate with. I'm sure that there are plenty of people here who can help you with sourcing samples.

[cactusman]

something like this?

http://www.biogeneticservices.com/

Routine test methods used at Biogenetic Services, Inc.
Protein Methods

    Isozyme Electrophoresis
    ELISA Protein Assays

DNA Methods

    RFLP (Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism)
    PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction)
    SSR (Simple Sequence Repeat)
    EST (Expressed Sequence Tag)
    SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism)

[Mangrove]

I'd suggest contacting the companies to ask if they offer plant karyotyping services. I also don't know if you should use germ-line or somatic cells for the purpose of karyotyping.

This link may be of use regarding gaining a general overview of the art of karyotyping; afaik it isn't the same as genotyping.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karyotype

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