In the early 1960s at  garden shows across the United States and in the U.K., you’d see more than your usual roses and begonias—you could

Growing Mutant Peanuts With the Radioactive Gardening Society

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2021-09-10 18:30:10

In the early 1960s at garden shows across the United States and in the U.K., you’d see more than your usual roses and begonias—you could see science at work. Giant peanuts. Huge tomatoes endlessly growing from a single stock. Multi-colored flowers on a single bush, or seeds that promised to grow an elusive blue rose. Genetic anomalies abounded in displays of flowers arranged to resemble protons and neutrons, advertising a new wave of gardening techniques. Horticulturists lovingly called these “atomic gardens” or “gamma gardens.”

Each of the plants in a gamma garden was a mutant, grown with the help of radiation. They were part of a new, experimental trend in horticulture that was meant to devise new plant breeds and revamp the then-sordid reputation of nuclear technology. From the 1950s into the 1970s, radioactive plants grew both in labs and in amateur gardeners’ backyards.

The mechanism of a gamma garden was simple: radiation came from a radioactive isotope-laden metal rod, which jutted out of the garden’s center and exposed the plants to its silent rays. Radiation slowly bludgeoned the plant DNA like a hammer and changed how genes were expressed.

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