update to PF Albino Breeding (quest for an all white cubensis)

[the_chosen_one]

It's been a bit rough over the last year and many of my projects have been placed on hold, but I've been able to keep my head above water with at least one. Professor, this one's for you!

The first three pics are of my first Falbino/PFA backcross attempt. The Falbino spores were germinated in LC containing some of the PF Albino monokaryon culture used to create Falbino. Most of the fruiting was done during a long power outage and was somewhat neglected so this isn't my best work , but it will suffice for now.

There seems to be not only a difference in color but in size and shape as well. I've added a pic of Falbino generation 2 (the fourth pic) as a comparison. Both were grown together.

Hopefully with more work some more of the pigment can be removed but it's still too early to tell. These fruits look very much like the very first Falbino that was produced during the F+/PFA cross. http://forums.mycotopia.net/showthread.php?t=8747 (PF Albino from Sporeworks (tribute))
Generation 2 was of course grown from the spores of that cross so I'm a bit worried the same may happen again and the original substrain may again mingle with all the others.

Don't get me wrong! I love Falbino and it serves its purpose with an array of fruiting substrains that can be duplicated through cloning....but this experiment is the quest for the all white cubensis. One that stands up straight and drops heavy spore deposits. At first I was skeptical and maybe a little still, but backcrossing seems to show some promise.

[Lazlo]

That's a pretty albino mushroom in that 4th pic!

[the_chosen_one]

Thanks Laz!

That will be my next alternate approach. Working with clones taken from those pure albino fruits. Once in a while they have that same nodding effect that the PFA has, but mostly they stand nice and straight. However, much is left desired of the spore deposits they leave. Very light, like the PFA. I won't be happy until we see that nice heavy white print!

[golly]

Glad your sticking with this project Tc..Would be great to have a stable albino out there...Best o' luck ...

[Hippie3]

not to rain on a parade
far from it
but
i wonder if what you are attempting
is even possible via the method you're using.

an all-white cubie is not necessarily an albino,
albinism is a genetic defect which may limit
your ability to get albinism AND good spore production.

but there are several strains that give that
suntop pattern we see in the pix above,
perhaps breeding for paler substrains
would be more productive
in getting where you want to go,
a strong vigorous all-white cubie.
non-albino.
maybe treasure coast could be crossed in,
i've seen many nearly white TCs over the years.

those look really beautiful
good luck on your quest!

[cap]

Originally Posted by Hippie3

not to rain on a parade
far from it
but
i wonder if what you are attempting
is possible via the method you're using.
an all-white cubie is not necessarily an albino,
albinism is a genetic defect which may limit
your ability to get albinism AND good spore production.
but there are several strains that give that
suntop pattern we see in the pix above,
perhaps breeding for paler substrains
would be more productive
in getting where you want to go,
a strong vigorous all-white cubie.
non-albino.
maybe treasure coast could be crossed in,
i've seen many nearly white TCs over the years.

hey did ya miss this bugger? i did at first!
check it out--

really neat tco, keep us posted on your progress! those pics are top notch good grow!

[Freaky]

Those are really beautiful!

Glad you haven't given up on the breeding!!!!!

Are the spores still that lighter purple color?

[Hippie3]

i saw it, Cap
but
that's an albino, i assume you mean it,
but note the others-
as dark as any cubie.
i'm thinking that
albinism is binary, on or off.
there's no middle ground.
you can't get a '1/2 albino' mushroom,
you'll only get a mix of specimens,
some albino at a higher-than-ordinary frequency
the rest will be normal.
i'm speculating that
albino DNA is in some way
deficient and will not drop plentifully.
but
one could in theory
breed white non-albino shrooms
with normal vigor,
excluding albinism as a short-cut
and focusing instead
on increasing the % of extremely pale specimens.

[Freaky]

Good points Hippie,
do you think its possible the albino genes are somehow fusing with the pigmented genes to give these partial specimens?
The albinos are really fascinating.

TCO, do the Falbinos, which aren't all white, carry any traits that the pure albino strain carries, besides the nodding feature? Like that solid bread like texture to the stem, the need for a drier fruiting environment, the blue center to the cap? I notice the caps get the same type of flower flow appearance the pure albino strain has.
Keep up the good work! Sorry for all the questions, just been a while since you talked albinos

[Hippie3]

no,
based on what little i know about albinism and genetics
there's no 'fusing' going on,
a specimen will either
carry the gene for pigment [normal]
or it will not [albino].

[Freaky]

Hmmmmm, really makes one think. So if there was any crossing going on the flush would pretty much be uniform? Not one albino sticking out in the middle of a flush of pigmented fruits? But it is obvious to me that the pigmented genes tend to have some sort of change occur, like the spores changed color, or the caps lighten to almost white.......it must just not happen uniformally.

[Hippie3]

correct,
but the open window is that fact that some cubies are almost white anyway.
but playing with albinism will never give normal white fruit
since albinism is a symptom of damaged DNA.
albino shrooms lack the required gene to make pigment,
and if one gene is bad
odds are pretty good
other genes are also negatively impacted,
such as [perhaps] spore production.
so it seems to me that what one really wants
is a normal [DNA-wise] pigmented strain
that expresses minimal pigmentation-
it has the capability but doesn't use/make
enough pigment to notice.
the gene is present and normal
but it just expresses itself as white,
that would allow normal sporulation.
again, all speculation on my part.

[the_chosen_one]

Originally Posted by Hippie3

not to rain on a parade
far from it
but
i wonder if what you are attempting
is possible via the method you're using.
an all-white cubie is not necessarily an albino,
albinism is a genetic defect which may limit
your ability to get albinism AND good spore production.
but there are several strains that give that
suntop pattern we see in the pix above,
perhaps breeding for paler substrains
would be more productive
in getting where you want to go,
a strong vigorous all-white cubie.
non-albino.
maybe treasure coast could be crossed in,
i've seen many nearly white TCs over the years.

hehe..I wonder too. Most of the evidence I've seen to this point with all old and new PF Albinos indicates that with albinism comes a lack of spore maturity. The spores are there, they just don't drop.

The pure white specimens of the Falbino seem to have improved maybe just slightly. There may be some hope of an improved version using cloning and selective breeding but it could take years. Unfortunately an excelerated breeding program is out of the question when the trait one seeks is sporulation.

What gives me hope with this route is the wide range of spore colors that Falbino drops. The more normal fruits dropping darker spores while the lighter ones drop a more lavenderish color. So far the backcross has produced only the lavenderish spores. The amount of spores seems undiminished in realtionship to it's darker depositing counterpart. That's good news..of course gauging with the naked eye could leave a margin of error of +/- a few million spores.

I'm curious just how far it can be pushed into the white before trouble with sporulation will occur. I can see Falbino evolving to a more white bodied purplish spore producer much like those TC's Hip. Maybe not a perfect white but closer.

I've even considered using spores from a white TC for a cross attempt but that trait doesn't duplicate from cloning. It carries but I was never able to obtain a flush of them. Besides, I'd need some TC's again and then there's that wait for the white ones to come along.....and I'm impatient
Besides, I'm way ahead of ya! The next mono-cross experiment is actually already underway. Hell, it's prolly ready to upload to syringes now..hehe I just gotta get away from this keyboard! This time it's being done using spores taken from a white Malaysian. It's not as common as the white TC but it does occur.

[the_chosen_one]

Originally Posted by Freaky

Those are really beautiful!

Glad you haven't given up on the breeding!!!!!

Are the spores still that lighter purple color?

Not as beautiful as your post! Welcome home lady!

Yes, for the most part the average Falbino print is a far lighter shade of purple than it's parent F+ strain or the PFA purple spores that Workman has.

[Freaky]

Thanks TCO.............hahahah its so good to be back, and of all days to enjoy albino shroom talk!!!!!!






Soon I hope to begin working with the wonders of this white magic. Thanks for sharing it, you and Workman.

[Cthulhu's Tentacle]

Nice

Keep sharing them spores, and eventually someone will get lucky at the genetics lottery!

But always remember what Workman said once: "Luck favors the observant".

[the_chosen_one]

Originally Posted by Hippie3

no,
based on what little i know about albinism and genetics
there's no 'fusing' going on,
a specimen will either
carry the gene for pigment [normal]
or it will not [albino].

Correct. But pigment production does seem to be affected to some degree. It's been my hope beyond hope that adding healthy DNA substrains will somehow correct at least some of the damage. This may take a while for the substrains to sort themselves out thus I've avoided isolating at least for now. As Falbino grows older (I believe it's somewhere around generation 19 now) it seems to be settling down to a happy medium of light colored bodies with somewhat darker spores. Less pure albino fruits seem to appear as well as the wide range of fruiting substains. This has been my greatest fear as Falbino was really intended to produce a wide array of substrains. This is why I chose Falbino 2 for the backcross experiment instead of the most recent. I was hoping to lock in some of that diversity.

From what I gather from TMC each fruiting body consists of at least two (probably many more) substrains. This is what makes the mushroom adapt to it's environment as only the best suited substrains will will end up dominant when all the sorting is done. Here's a pic of what I believe to be two different substrains exsisiting in one fruiting body. Not a fusion so to speak as it is a co-exsistence.
Unfortunatley I don't have any pics of the gills, but PF can confirm this. The gills in the pigmented area will have color and drop purple spores while the gills in the nonpigmented areas will remain albino and hardly drop spores if at all. This feature can even be duplicated through cloning to some degree. Eventually with enough generations one or a like group of substrains will emerge victorious over the others. I beleive this is what occured with Workman's isolate of the PFA thus it only produces pure white flushes now. I'm willing to bet that it will never again produce a pigmented substrain.

Freaky - yes there are a vast assortment of parental traits thrown out by the Falbino. Altough most have nice solid stems (unlike it's F+ parent) the breadlike stems seem only to appear with the more pure albino specimens. The very pure will even nod. We may not be able to produce a heavy spore dipositor but I do feel this nodding effect can be corrected by cloning and an improved non-nodding version of the PFA can be obtained.

Thanks CT

[Freaky]

I love the observations...........be observant and lucky

[Workman]

Cool post. The partial, blotchy hybrids have always confused me. They appear to be chimeras with genetically distinct areas combined into one fruit body. Initially I was thinking it could be just spontaneous mutation of a cell early in the mushroom development, but it happens to often for a random mutation of a specific trait.

Unlike animal cells, the cells that compose fertile mushroom mycelium are dikaryotic (two nuclei per cell). These nuclei are not identical and there is some evidence that they can recombine (exchange genes) during normal cell division. This would explain sectoring on agar in clones and 1/2 albino mushrooms that don't clone true.

I need to get back to work on the albino myself. I suspect that a heavy sporulating albino isn't possible since pigment production seems to be intimately involved with spore production. I also suspect a viral infection in all of the PF lines that degrades the culture over time and may be one of the reasons for the genetic damage that has caused a variety of mutations.

[Bobcat]

Wow. Awesome work as always TCO!

From what I gather from TMC each fruiting body consists of at least two (probably many more) substrains. This is what makes the mushroom adapt to it's environment as only the best suited substrains will will end up dominant when all the sorting is done.

I never caught that, thats too cool. So when you clone an albino from an early strain, like what your working on, you still get a lot of non -albino fruits? And this is because the clone is actually more than one substrain? And since albinism is a trait, in so much that a life form is either albino or is not albino, why is it that some fruits that you describe (and have shown) are not true albinos but are light colored or mottled? Something here isn't clicking in my mind- but genetics has always boggled me.

One last question... Sorry if this has been covered and I missed it... How is the germination rate of albino spores? Do they do their thing? I'm just wondering if the pigment protects the genetic material from UV damage and, if that is the case, how well one could preserve an albino spore.

This stuff makes my head spin. I love it!

[Hippie3]

that's an interesting photo
but i think it is by itself insufficient
to conclude the presence of multiple substrains intermixed.
other possible explanations exist that haven't been ruled out.
perhaps the pigment gene is partially damaged or
perhaps unseen environmental factors.

i think workman has it right,
as i told roger rabbit some time ago sectoring on agar
can be explained by

recombine (exchange genes) during normal cell division.

which would be a change in the dna,
not true intermixing of distinct strains per se
but more akin to the evolution of a single substrain
into distinct varieties.

[Bobcat]

Wait, so what are people saying? That the above pic is an example of two substrains, an albino and a non-albino, creating a single mushroom. And that is why they are mottled? Interesting.

[the_chosen_one]

Originally Posted by Bobcat

Wait, so what are people saying? That the above pic is an example of two substrains, an albino and a non-albino, creating a single mushroom. And that is why they are mottled? Interesting.

Well, as Workman said "they appear to be chimeras". But according to the books this is impossible. And it's ok Bob Everytime I read those chapters I see it a little differently..it's easy to get this genetic stuff confused.

I like Workman's ability to put things in a more understandable format. I'd go with what he says too over a guy reading TMC over a glass of Wild Turkey Rare Breed! The man is a true professional. I'm just the stoner that's trying stuff.

Really though, it's those little swirly guys that have me wondering if perhaps we are not missing something. After all, for thousands of years humans thought the world was flat, and had sciences based on it. These sciences weren't totally abandoned when the discovery of a round planet was made. Just re-organized.

Sorry sometimes I tend to over analyze.

But what the hell are these things!?! They not only appear with Falbino but the original PF Albino producing strains as well.

Bobcat - All the mature spores of any color are viable..or at least most. The monokayon culture I'm working with was aquired from a single white spore germination that I was fortunate enough to corner on agar.

I also wonder alot about the pigment thing too. What purpose does it serve in a mushroom? For many life forms it's protection against light, camoplague and used in mating rituals. There's a lot more but I'm running out of time..
anyways, after watching Falbino for a while I think it's safe to determine that one of the functions of cap color is to act like a light sensor telling the fruiting body which way to grow. The pigment itself may not be responsible but it seems to be a critical part of the machine. This is the difference between albinism and just a white mushroom like the TC ot Malay. The pigment is there..it's just white or very very close. Most of the white Falbinos that stand straight have just the slightest tinge of yellow in the cap centers. Almost unnoticeable but...it's my hopes to push it just a bit further.

[the_chosen_one]

If Workman is correct with the virus theory...then chances are all this will be for not.

however, on the bright side, all these years we've been witness to an epic struggle between two lifeforms. If this be the case, then I wonder if the increase in first flush fruiting yields is a reaction of the mushroom to the virus. Kind of a "if you aren't gonna let me sporulate normally then I'll just shit out more fruits" type of attitude. Of course, the mushroom is not a calculative creature and the response would be instinctual, but it makes me wonder......

[BuckarooBanzai]

Great work, man. I love this stuff.

Really excellent thread.

[Hippie3]

you could cut tiny samples from such a cap,
a piece from the white and one from the red [tan] area
grow each out on agar
and compare [as best you can] to see if they are indeed
uniquely distinct