Hi all...

New member here, trying to sort out a nasty problem which we've encountered. The lab I work in has a couple of growth chambers which we use for our Arabidopsis plants. Generally speaking, they grow fine - until the end of last week when virtually all of them became sterile - that is, they start producing siliques but they are almost empty and don't develop. Some contain a few seeds which develop until at the least the heart stage, and their pollen is fine. We think that maybe their ovule development has been disrupted by a chemical or something, perhaps one used by the builiders who are working on another part of the builders.

Worryingly, when building work was occurring at the same time last year the same thing happened (I wasn't working here then)! It lasted for several months then went away just as suddenly.

Does a chemical effect sound plausible? Has anyone ever encountered anything similar or have any other suggestions for what might be wrong? We're fairly certain that we don't have any pathogens and that the growth room conditions having been changed in any way.

If anyone can help, I'd be immensely grateful - until we can perform crosses, most of our experiments are screwed!

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how old are your seeds? maybe they're not vigorous enough to produce seeds because of their age rather than being affected by an unknown chemical? what about getting new seeds to continue your experiments? or were they very specific and you can't get them anywhere else?

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They vary in age, some quite new. They've all been fine up to now. Some are standard wild-types, others we've made ourselves through considerable effort and can't be replaced!

Thanks though.

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hello

I have the same situation as you! my plants grow very bad since we have moved to the new building.

stone

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did you give them enough cold hours before growing them? are you growing them in chambers or in a greenhouse? i had a similar problem growing maize plants during this time of the year and it was because of the photoperiod, when i did the same experiment starting in april those plants grew up very well

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