Hey Boss,
As requested, I have gathered all the information on the Texas Prairie Dawn. Originally I thought that we might have been able to capitalize on this species, but I think we should take a step back and reassess its potential. The following outlines its classification:
- Kingdom – Plantae
- Phylum – Anthophyta
- Class – Dicotyledoneae
- Order – Asterales
- Family – Asteraceae
- Genus – Hymenoxys
The main problem I have come across while researching the Hymenoxys texana, is the fact that it does not have many adaptations that increase its chance of survival. However lets take a look at the following three:
- The Texas Prairie Dawn can grow in lightly vegetated areas. In fact it can grow in areas that others plants won’t, due to the lack of neutral water or improper amount of nutrients in the soil. Unfortunately, it doesn’t thrive in areas that are highly vegetated, because it does not grow as fiercely as other plants.
- It can grow in coastal areas, where we find salty and or sandy growing conditions. The soil does not need to be as packed or as concentrated.
- It can grow in soils that contain moderate alkaline levels. To other plants even small amounts of alkaline levels are hazardous to their survival.
The Prairie Dawn is a member of the sunflower family, even though they only reach a height of about six to seven inches. I would speculate that we could get the best use out of this plant by capitalizing on its ability to vegetate in salty, alkaline enriched soils. By using specialized breeding methods, we could crossbreed it with a regular sunflower and perhaps create new species that would grow in different environments around the globe. To do this many things would have to be researched, including, but not limited to: how exactly the Texas Prairie seeds, how a regular sunflower seeds, if the two are crossbreedable, the exact types of soils we should market too, and of course what kind of markets we would be shooting for.
Due to reproductive isolation, chances are likely that even though Texana and regular sunflowers come from the same family they cannot reproduce. There would have to be a lot of research committed to the understanding of a possibility in fertile offspring. The overall outcome would be to create a species of sunflower which produce sunflower seeds that are edible to humans in areas that were once to salty or dry. To do this we would need to breed the Hymenoxys texana with sunflowers. Those offspring would be grown in salty alkaline environments. The offspring, which were able to grow and reproduce, would further be bread with other sunflowers and planted in perhaps increased salty or alkaline environments. Inevitably the outcome would be a sunflower plant capable of producing edible seeds that could grow in different soils. We could catalog and organize every plant to determine which offspring grew best in which condition. After about 2 years of breeding we would most likely end up with 20 or 30 soil adaptable plants.
The end product could be most profitable. We could analyze the soil type and recommend a specific plant based on two years of selection and reproduction. Ethically this is a great plan. Not only do we provide a larger food selection to areas that once was not able to sustain it, but we also create a species of the Hymenoxys texana that could survive and reproduce better.
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