Atomic gardens are a form of mutation breeding

Mutation breeding

Mutation breeding is the process of exposing seeds to chemicals or radiation in order to generate mutants with desirable traits to be bred with other cultivars. Plants created using mutagenesis are sometimes called mutagenic plants or mutagenic seeds...

 where plants are exposed to radioactive sources, typically Cobalt-60

Cobalt-60

Cobalt-60, , is a synthetic radioactive isotope of cobalt. Due to its half-life of 5.27 years, is not found in nature. It is produced artificially by neutron activation of . decays by beta decay to the stable isotope nickel-60...

, in order to generate useful mutation

Mutation

In molecular biology and genetics, mutations are changes in a genomic sequence: the DNA sequence of a cell's genome or the DNA or RNA sequence of a virus. They can be defined as sudden and spontaneous changes in the cell. Mutations are caused by radiation, viruses, transposons and mutagenic...

s. One example is the resistance to verticillium wilt

Verticillium wilt

Verticillium Wilt is a wilt disease of over 300 species of eudicot plants caused by one of two species of Verticillium fungus, V. dahliae and V. albo-atrum. Many economically important plants are susceptible including cotton, tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, peppers and ornamentals, as well as others...

 of the "Todd's Mitcham" cultivar of peppermint

Peppermint

Peppermint is a hybrid mint, a cross between the watermint and spearmint . The plant, indigenous to Europe, is now widespread in cultivation throughout all regions of the world...

 which was produced from a breeding and test program at Brookhaven National Laboratory

Brookhaven National Laboratory

Brookhaven National Laboratory , is a United States national laboratory located in Upton, New York on Long Island, and was formally established in 1947 at the site of Camp Upton, a former U.S. Army base...

 from the mid 1950s.

History

Beginning in the 1950s, atomic gardens were a part of Atoms for Peace

Atoms for Peace

"Atoms for Peace" was the title of a speech delivered by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower to the UN General Assembly in New York City on December 8, 1953....

, a program to develop "peaceful" uses of fission energy after WWII. Gamma gardens were established in laboratories in the US, Europe, parts of the former USSR, India and Japan. The Atomic Gardening Society was set up in 1959 by Muriel Howorth in the UK. Irradiated seeds were sold to the public by C.J. Speas, who had obtained a licence for a Cobolt-60 source; and sold seeds produced in a backyard cinderblock bunker. A number of commercial plant varieties were developed and released.

Gamma gardens

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.

In popular culture

Atomic gardens are part of the background of the plot of The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds

The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds

The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds is a 1964 play written by Paul Zindel, a playwright and science teacher. Zindel received the 1971 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and a New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for the work. The play's world premiere was staged in 1964 at the Alley Theatre...

which features the growth of irradiated seeds as a science fair project.

External links

• Institute of Radiation Breeding (IRB), NIAS, MAFF, Hitachiohmiya, Japan
• IRB gamma field on Google maps