Atomic gardening
Atomic gardening is a form of mutation breeding where plants are exposed to radioactive sources, typically cobalt-60,[1] in order to generate useful mutations.
One example is the resistance to verticillium wilt of the "Todd's Mitcham" cultivar of peppermint which was produced from a breeding and test program at Brookhaven National Laboratory from the mid-1950s.[2][3]
History
Beginning in the 1950s, atomic gardens were a part of Atoms for Peace, a program to develop peaceful[2] uses of fission energy after WWII. Gamma gardens were established in laboratories in the US, Europe, parts of the former USSR, India[4] and Japan. The Atomic Gardening Society was set up in 1959 by Muriel Howorth in the UK. The youngest member of the society was Christopher Abbey (15), a student at Eastbourne College and the son of a dentist, who received a certificate of merit for propagating several species of irradiated seeds to maturity. Irradiated seeds were sold to the public by C.J. Speas, who had obtained a licence for a cobalt-60 source; and sold seeds produced in a backyard cinderblock bunker. A number of commercial plant varieties were developed and released.[5]
The gamma gardens were arranged in a circular pattern with a retractable radiation source in the middle. Plants were usually laid out like slices of a pie, radiating from the central radiation source; this pattern produced a range of radiation doses over the radius from the centre. The plants nearest the centre usually died, the ones further out often featured "tumors and other growth abnormalities"; beyond these were the plants of interest, with a higher than usual range of mutations, but not to the damaging extent of those closer to the radiation source.[2]
In popular culture
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Atomic gardens are part of the background of the plot of The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds which features the growth of irradiated seeds as a science fair project.[2] The Dilbert comic strip contains a reference to atomic gardening in form of sentient broccoli.[6]
References
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External links
- Institute of Radiation Breeding (IRB), NIAS, MAFF, Hitachiohmiya, Japan
- IRB gamma field on Google maps
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