Name: Sharon Rose Grapevine, TX (Zone 8a) Grace of the Lord Jesus be with all
Christie-- although that was not good news, at least you know to get rid of that plant. Any gardeners in your area especially veggie gardeners should be glad you took the time to find out. You helped stop the disease from spreading. Many blessings for the remainder of your plants to stay healthy!
One to take to heart....1 John 4 ..............................................Where there is smoke...there is fire...in most cases the smoke will kill you long before the fire consumes you. Beware of smoke screens! Freedom is not free and when those who have not paid the price or made the sacrifice...think that only they are right and entitled to speak...they bring us tryanny.
Hi, very amateur gardener here and just signed up to post on this interesting thread.
I know this is an older thread, but there doesn't seem to be much info out there on "conjoined" sunflowers. Indeed this forum seems to fairly consistently come up as the first result on Google after multiple keyword searches...
One of ours has had a double headed flower on this year, but it doesn't look like any of the pictures when searching for "fasciation sunflower".
Also worth noting is that I'm not sure it could be disease related as there's around 10 or so neighbouring plants all in a fairly tight space showing no sign of mutations/defects... Plus there appears to be secondary flowers coming through on that particular plant which also look to be developing double heads (main flower had now been cut today and currently drying).
Any thoughts? Could this be a straight mutated plant? Pics attached.
Name: Christie Central Ohio 43016 (Zone 6a) Plays on the water.
I expect it could still be a virus. The one I had also had numerous other sunflowers in the area that were normal. It is worth saying that even if it is a virus, you can still feed those seeds to the birds with no problems. To see if it might be a natural mutation, you might plant some of those seeds and see what happens.
Name: Daisy I Reno, Nv (Zone 6b) Not all who wander are lost
Fasciation is caused by a lot of things, some genetic and some physical (disease, bug bite, chemical reaction...). It happens when the apical meristem (the growth point), for some reason becomes elongated, rather than staying a point. The only way the fasciation might be repeated in the next generation if the cause was genetic. Here's a good short article explaining it a little better than I.
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and proclaiming...."WOW What a Ride!!" -Mark Frost
President: Orchid Society of Northern Nevada
Webmaster: osnnv.org
