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[The Clam]

For example, a plant like kava kava that is very finicky treated with some sort of light mutagen and exposed to an evirmoental stress like cold to induce anti-stress defense mechanisms.

[jbz711]

I'm trying to overwinter mine in the ground with a little help, doubtful it will survive but if it does perhaps it will be more cold hardy.

[Bach]

Kava seems pretty resistant to developing cold resistance. Anything below 60F they don't like, especially for extended periods. Below 50F will pretty much do them in. People have been trying for years and failing to adapt them to cooler temps.

I think the species has been clonally propagated for so long it's lost a lot of genetic variability and so is limited in it's adaptability. Add to that the fact that the plant it's descended from Piper wichmanii is pretty much an obligate tropical and I think we really end up with nowhere to go but keeping them warm at all times.

If you were to do a project like The Clam suggests I would think you'd need to treat hundreds or thousands of specimens to get just the right mutation, and even then I think getting what you want would be unlikely.

[Inyan]

I'm betting on death for this little fellow.

[BubbleCat]

There sure isnt a way as wasy as you lined out. Still I am going to suggest a cure to some of the problems with adaption: Removing all leaves when circumstances change might help formation of new readily adapted leaves rather than having the plant hang onto doomed leaves before they will be swapped out anyways. Obviously this is provided the plant will handle radical pruning.

1 Like FewTrueSeed likes this.

[Desolus]

Yes, it's called genetic engineering and requires a labratory... if you have some coin to drop on equipment and a lot of time to spend reading I think you'd be surprised at just how low tech a good number of genetic expirements are...

remember cells are just like ducked up legos that only fit a certain way. So if you can force it, it will probably work and do *something* differently... replacing chromosomes with another plants is a very viable option for what you are trying to do. But like everything in genetic engineering it's a million errors and one success.

[Desolus]

Another option, which is counterintuitively more complicated is to 1# figure out what, chemically, would make the plant more hardy. 2# figure out how to precisely measure that specific chemical. 3# start breeding from seed and testing each and every seedling for variances in that chemical...

the reason you must do the chemical testing on a plant like this is that any changes will almost undoubtedly be very minor and likely not effect the hardiness at all. You may only see physical results after a very long time of high breeding. Where the genetic rout tends to be strictly pass or fail. And you figure it out within weeks.

Both methods require special equipment that is simply out of reach for most people. But like I said, if you got the coin.

[The Clam]

Thanks guys for all the answers, this is a project im currently working on. Iv been hoping to keep to chemicals opposed to genetic engineering but if it comes down to that I could defiantly work that out. Really what im wondering is what set of traits makes a plant cold hardy?

[Desolus]

A quick Google search brings up this article:
https://www.howplantswork.com/2010/01/07/how-plants-survive-the-cold-or-not/

As you might guess a microscope is the first tool you need in determining the first cause of cell death in lower temperatures, the first cause in this case because it happens far above freezing is more than likely a metabolism halt.

The biggest hurdle in the project is going to be this first one, raising the low temperature metabolism or making hibernation feasible.

The next, but in my opinion less complicated hurdle is boosting the sugar content of the plant so I can survive sub 0 degrees C


In the end you will probably want to use a variety of methods to force this plant into doing something it was not meant to do.

P.S. I find your utilization of the 'just do it method' to be very admirable and I truly wish you the best on this project. If I can be of assistance in any way id enjoy it.

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[Chicsa]

http://www.palmtalk.org/forum/index.php?/topic/55291-on-developing-a-cold-tolerant-coconut-palm/

I thought this was an interesting topic about breeding coconuts in fringe zones to potentially increase their children's survival rate in that zone. (z9b) If i had to honestly guess outside of crossing with an even more cold hardy species, you probably wont be able to do more than a zone or half zone better then how its previous generation did.

1 Like The Clam likes this.

[Desolus]

My only question is can you afford to move zones every couple of years? If this isn't to be just a thought expirement a measure of practicality is warranted.

I suppose you could make it a collaborative expirement passing one generation onto someone in the next coldest zone... But that's a lot of collaboration with people you aren't paying and may be hard to get off the ground.

[Chicsa]

Well considering I live in an area where parts are 10a and parts are 9b, there are plenty of places with public coconuts that you can take when they fall, its fairly possible with that at least. If you go down the street from my house 3 miles, its a solid 9b, if you go down the opposite way its solidly 10a.

[Desolus]

it's definitely possible to go that way with it, though my initial thoughts on it are
  "if it was that easy for coconuts to adapt to much colder zones simply by being on the fringe all the time why aren't there coconuts in Washington state for example?"

 then I think
  "because there is some barrier, chemically, that prevents them from adapting to further zones and we need to figure out what that is so we can fix it"

I just don't like the let's roll 9,001 dice until we get what we want approach, if i had the time, i'd defiantly be working on this problem in my makeshift laboratory... that first problem though of getting it to go to 1 degree C is certainly going to be the most difficult by far.

personally, I'd love to have a field of kava kava growing in my backyard here in the great nation of texas, and not worry about it freezing to death as soon as it turns fall; not so much a coconut tree tho 
I need to visit the happy island one of these days...

[BubbleCat]

So since this turns out to be specifically genetics:

To speed things up one would need a very huge population. Also one would need a very controlled environment to ensure all plants have the exact same condition to begin with, including water light fertilization and potting mix. To get even better sample size and address remaining variation in conditions several clones of each individual, to determine their average performance, would be even better. This leaves you with even greater population.

Since mutation occurs at random and has nothing to do with environment conditions (excluding mutagenes) speeding it up by use of mutagenes appears sensible.

Now: 99.9% of mutations will be negative, leaving plants crippled or making them less desirable in any way. Or in other words: Moving them further from the original without adding any benefit, let alone the desired change.
Of the remainong 0.1% beneficial mutations again 99.9% will not be what one is after (increased cold hardiness).
Add to that, that a plant may have several mutations, some good some bad, some even of the desired type. In such case some traits will have to be bred out, taking care the desirable mutation persists. Then the population will need stabilizing.

In the end cultivating any plant on a large scale and watching for any beneficial mutations will be a lot less frustrating than going for something very particular. Of course, if someone is determined to go the later route they might also go the extra mile and breed several variations with other benefits along the way.

Bottom line: Without a lot of spare time, dedication, tolerance to frustration and legal tender this task is out of reach for the hobby gardener. Making progress by chance, not intention, seems more likely to happen.

Of course there is the more scientific way of genome editing. As mentioned before: One would determine the cause of death at the iteration, research ways that makes other plants immune to it, trying to apply this knowledge by genome editing (still requiring a huge population and regular breeding out unintentional 'editing') and making sure the plant retains its original character or at least the usefulness one is after.

It's a long way.

[Chicsa]

it's definitely possible to go that way with it, though my initial thoughts on it are
  "if it was that easy for coconuts to adapt to much colder zones simply by being on the fringe all the time why aren't there coconuts in Washington state for example?"

There arent many Coconuts in California which is within the coconut zone, but does not have the climate to support them. So even though it doesnt get cold enough to kill them, their ecology does. Again I think the best you'll ever do with coconuts is bringing them maybe a half a zone better. They have genetic limitations that won't allow them to grow in hard freezing enviornments. I'm told the lowest the most cold hardy variety can already go down to 28ishF which is a half zone better then most of the species.

BTW There are coconuts being growin in WA (in the warmer parts), they are Bolivian Coconuts, Parajubea Torallyi which can allegedly survive down to 9F, though they aren't true coconuts... but hey, if anyone can figure out how to cross the two there ya go.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parajubaea_torallyi

First photo is worldwide coconut distribution you can see its not in California despite SoCal having zones above 9B that theoretically could support coconuts, yet couldn't find any. I did find Parajubea, but no cocos nuciferas. Zone 10a being the magical zone for coconuts. Only using coconuts as an example btw, since this is what i've been researching in this field

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