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Exploring the Fascinating World of Fasciation · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hi there, welcome back to Hydroponics Daily, and today we're talking about fasciation.
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  Yes, it's the fascinating world of fasciation.
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  Fasciation is a fairly complicated word, and it means that when you're developing
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  bud on your plant is damaged in some way, it grows in a malformed way,
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  and it can look weird, it can look beautiful,
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  you can think it looks ugly, but it's certainly interesting, it's.
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  Fasciation comes from but it's due to
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  the damage of the developing cells so in
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  plants stems and flowers and roots they
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  all come from a place called meristems and that's where
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  undifferentiated cells just normal
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  cells are constantly dividing by mitosis and
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  that's creating new tissue that then differentiates into
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  all the different organs and the plant the cells
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  detect where they are in the plant by various signals given
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  off by the cells around them and that tells them what
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  to develop into and when you get fasciation that
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  process goes wrong it goes haywire and you
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  get strange growth so you
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  can get bulging growth so you can get extremely long
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  flowers that would have been circular you
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  can get distorted growth you get things that
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  look like horns on cacti and
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  things like this and succulent plants you can
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  get lots more flowers but they might not develop properly and so in some crops
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  you might actually encourage this and you can find fasciated plants on sale
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  you can find fasciated cacti for example on sale in garden centers and in ikea
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  and people might encourage fasciation to produce.
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  Unusual shaped flowers and that's
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  what thimming in hydroponics that's
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  a that's a common pruning technique and that's a that's
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  a form of fasciation now in
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  nature fasciation occurs in nature as well and you
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  can it can occur normally due to mechanical damage
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  so you've you've pruned it incorrectly maybe your secateurs
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  aren't sharp enough or you've damaged a bud or if
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  you've squeezed a bud too tightly that can
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  damage the apical meristem as it develops a frost
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  can cause fasciation so if you're growing plants flowering
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  plants or the flowers are developing and you've maybe you've
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  grown them in a greenhouse or you've you've sown them too
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  early and there's a late frost then then that can
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  cause fasciation a number of insects can
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  cause fasciation a lot of those that form
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  galls can form can cause fasciated
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  growth even chemicals certain herbicides
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  or pesticides can damage apical meristems
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  and cause fasciation and there's
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  a lot of weeds when you hoe and fork your soil that
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  can cause fasciation so if you.
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  Think it's a problem you can you can you.
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  Can prune it prune the material off if you're
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  growing a plant that dies after it flowers then you don't need.
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  To worry about it happening again unless it's a genetic mutation
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  and then that's that's very different to
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  you know the fasciation caused by frost or
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  mechanical damage if it's a genetic mutation then then
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  that's not really we wouldn't really cover that
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  some people would call that fasciation but more it's it's more
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  of a mutation and you again you might
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  think that that mutation is desirable and you might select
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  for it you know certain things like double flowers
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  for example where they've got double certain petals
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  then this is this is an example whether you've got malformed flowers
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  that are not strictly fasciation the bacterium rhodococcus
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  fascians hence the name rhodococcus fascians
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  can also cause fasciation and if you have got that into your growing
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  media or your soil then again that
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  could that could lead to infections in
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  subsequent generations and the same with certain viruses
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  if you get fasciation can be caused by viruses as
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  well as bacteria and so you would want
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  to make sure that you sterilized your grow
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  media your tools and things like this to prevent the the
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  passing on of the fasciation if it was proving a problem to you so as i say
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  flattened shoots shoots that appear fused in some way misshapen flowers they're
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  all an example of fasciation and sometimes they're desirable and if they are
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  desirable and that they're in a perennial crop.
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  Sometimes you can actually vegetatively propagate the plant to.
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  To maintain the fasciation and and
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  and sell that on as an unusual unusual
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  plant so some examples of fasciated
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  plants include ferns so if ferns that
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  have got the the suffix monstrosa.
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  Or cristata they're highly collectible fasciated
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  plants so we talked about house plants in the last episode and
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  we said that you might want unique genetics well
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  this is a form where you might want a unique form a unique fasciated
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  plant you could sell that for more than you could the the normal
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  fern wild type version fascinated fasciated
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  willows salix udensis seca is
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  propagated from cuttings so again vegetative propagation willow's
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  the easiest plant in the world to propagate from cuttings so once you've
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  got an unusual plant and lots of
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  lots of willow mutants are propagated
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  vegetatively like the corkscrew willow and obviously
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  weeping willow babylonia and even
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  one plant celosia argentea variety christata
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  again christata being another name for fasciated that
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  can carry its fasciation to the seeds because it's a
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  genetic mutation caused by the doubling
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  of the chromosome number so that's been
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  fasciation a short and sweet one for today nicely leading
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  on from houseplants because of the
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  most commonly fasciated plants houseplants are the ones that are most desirable
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  so if you enjoyed that listen again tomorrow make sure you click follow to keep
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  on hearing the droning on of dr russell sharp talking about hydroponics and
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  other forms of horticulture. Thank you very much.