Request for Daffodil Seeds

The ADS has received a request for daffodil seeds from Jackson Henggeler, a chemistry student at DePaul University.  Below is Jackson’s request:

My name is Jackson Henggeler and I am currently a chemistry student at DePaul University. I work in a research laboratory and one of our current research projects involves growing out daffodil cultures in a sterile environment in order to characterize their alkaloid production and, in the future, perform feeding experiments on the cultures.

We have currently attempted to start cultures from bulbs, but due the presence of fungal spores within the vascular system, all of the cultures become contaminated quite fast. Because of the problems starting cultures from bulbs we have turned to using seed as our starting point. We have tried to find a reliable source of daffodil seed in the wild, but we can’t seem to find one that is both reliable and produces well. I am contacting you in hopes that your organization may be able to donate a quantity of daffodil seeds to our laboratory so that we may properly grow out our culture library and our research may continue. I’d be happy to answer any further questions you may have about our research as well!

Thank you for your time,

Jackson Henggeler at  title=

 

4 comments for “Request for Daffodil Seeds

  1. I sent Jackson an email, but his request is a “loaded” request.  I’m not sure that he knows how long it takes to get a daffodil to the size to have good foliage, or whether that is a qualification.

    My best guess is that he will be graduated and a professor in some university before the daffodils start producing any foliage.  The first couple years the foliage may not help him.

    I wonder, does he want miniature or just standard.

    I’m prepared to send some standard seeds pollinated my the “white” headed hornets that always help me pollinate my daffodils here in North Carolina, when the seed pods mature in about a month or less from now.

    Clay

    Clay

     

  2. Got my first Chemistry lesson today since high school.

    I received this back from Jackson:

    “However, we use a different method of growing and working with the plants in our lab. We germinate the seeds in agar petri dishes over the span of about three months. After germination, we place the embryos on a different set of plates that has been treated with a chemical that induces callus culture growth, essentially cells of the plant that are undifferentiated.  What we work with in our lab are Narcissus sp. but instead of resembling a growing daffodil, they end up looking like green blobs of cells. This works well for the purpose of our experimentation because it allows easy manipulation of the growth substrate, we are able to track the growth of the cultures, and we can characterize the production of interesting alkaloids. ”

    I will be sending him the 100 seeds that he needs.

    Clay

  3. Clay,

    Thank you for supporting this person’s project. What with El Nino here in Northern California this year, I have yet to find one seedpod!

    Nancy

  4. I also emailed Jackson, asking whether he wanted species or cultivar seed.  I’ve not had a reply, but I guess Clay’s nice offer will fill the bill.

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