Artist Journal - Hybridize - © Lloyd Godman - A super sustainable art project in progress

This is a very long term project, with unpredictable results - as an extension of the Classification work - the concept is to cross-pollinate some of my Bromeliad collection, germinate and then grow the seed on to maturity for 4 -5 years, observe what eventuates and then name the new hybrids after fossil fuel machines - this also becomes a link to the Plant Room

The naming of Hybrids ( ie rose sunset, desert bloom ) usually equates to the growers romantic notions, however the new hybrids I am producing will be named after carbon emitting devices like car names - I am looking to latinize the names like   - Ford Falcon etc. - ( Fordea Falconii)  - still have to work out the exact Latin.


I have also discovered this practice of producing more "green" than one consumes is called super sustainable -  The Swedish are looking to produce a super sustainable city - http://www.greenmuze.com/build/design/930-the-super-sustainable-city.html

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Neoregelia flower - the first flowers were pollinated in the summer of 2007 Cross-pollination takes place between 2 plants of different species.

	Ripe seed capsule from a Neoregelia -
	the seed is inside mixed in a sticky jelly and is squeezed out - 2007

Viresea seed highly magnified - 2007 Seed takes about 4 - 6 weeks to germinate

First signs of Neoregelia seed germination

Fresh seedlings several months old - 2007

A close up of seedlings about 12 months old dec 2007

	Neoregelia seedlings - detail 2007
	Neoregelia Sedlings after 3 years - 2010
	Vriesea seed germinating 2011
	the first batch of Billbergia Seedlings - one year old - these grow quickly - 2010
	A few years ago I started growing bromeliads from seed - I asked Mauice Kellett who lives a few Km away  and  is my  Brom Guru the best way of doing this - He suggested using a humidicrib - that they keep newborn babies in but said I would have to improvise as they are either 2 expensive or unobtainable second-hand -  3 days  later at the recyle shop  there was one for $6 - it had a small crack in it and had been deaccessioned from the air ambulance service of Vitoria -
Thousdands of seedling bromeliads in the what has become known as the LLoboratory	It's perfect - I place a light bulb underneath it to keep the temp between 20 -30 degrees and water in the bottom tray - lift the seed trays up from this level and it delivers a perfect temp an humidity for germination -  I now have more than 5,000 plants - growing in other boxes - these have water in the bottom with the seed trays lifted above this so the temp and humidity is good to grow them on
	Every time I tend to the seeds I think of all the little babies that would have been flown around the state in the humidicrib unit  and wonder who these people are, how old they are and what they do? Anyway the unit now has another function  Recycling is wonderful!

In the past 100 years about 70 - 86% of apple, pear genes in the USA have been lost through mono-cropping - Nature creates gene diversity - As current human activity has destroyed the diversity most of these genes were obviously crap genes and we did not really need them - 
However isn't it wonderful that scientists are able to combine the diminishing gene pool into new plants through what we call GM crops - This is not creating new genes but rearranging existing genes. From what I can gather, we still dont know how to create new genes, so You wonder what we have lost.