North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Lon J. Rombough" <lonrom@hevanet.com>]

Here is a letter from the Garden Writers List that may be of interest:

"As a 14 year old student researcher at the Oregon Museum of Science and
Industry, I personally used a gamma irradiator to induce mutations and
dwarfism. Exposures are are expressed in "Gy" or gray units(absorbed dose
of radiation), 100 gray units = a "rad" or radiation absorbed dose. 1000 Gy=
a kiloGray 100,000 Gy= 1 krad. The level used to kill seed (and it can) or
mutate it, are much, much higher than what is used for the clean up of
bacteria. One sets an exposure time to the Cobalt 60 or Cesium 137 source
(usually from spent nuke reactor rods) sets and then removes the target. I
recall that my exposure times were in the hours (in krads) and that when the
seeds were "done" the glass vessel would actually change from clear to a
smokey brown. I had bizarre (and variegated) sunflowers that year! The
FDA's highest level permitted for bacterial sterilization is 3 kiloGrays.
For those in a panic, foil-lined pouches will protect your seeds (available
at film stores and they are reusable). Class dismissed.  "
----------
>From: Thomas Olenio <tolenio@sentex.net>
>To: <nafex@yahoogroups.com>
>Subject: Re: [nafex] Re: Irradiation of Mail & Plant Fallout
>Date: Fri, Oct 26, 2001, 9:14 PM
>

>Hello,
>
>I doubt the U.S. government will release any information on this topic,
>and will discourage the supplier of the equipment to either.  Really
>cannot blame them in that regard.
>

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