1/27/2024 0 Comments Four leaf clover crowntakers“If daylight or temperatures aren’t right, you won’t see it.”īut at other times, five, six, or as many as eight leaves will show up. “It’s been a really tough trait to do,” Parrott said. Parrott, a Distinguished Research Professor in crop and soil sciences, also found the location of other genes that can add red coloring to white clover’s leaves.īut even with markers that could be associated with the four-leaf clover trait, it isn’t exactly easy to “make your own luck.” The four-leaf trait doesn’t always show up when expected, even if the genes are present. Pennetti’s work in the Institute of Plant Breeding, Genetics and Genomics focuses on genetic engineering in turfgrass, but he’s also an amateur clover breeder who has gotten pretty good at spotting them in the wild (see more below).įor clovers to produce four leaves, Pennetti said, it takes a combination of genes and environment, but the precise interplay of those two and other factors is still unsolved.Ī decade ago, UGA researcher Wayne Parrott and his research team identified the genetic markers associated with the four-leaf trait in white clover ( trifolium repens), a prevalent species in yards across the U.S. “The jury is on out why,” said Vincent Pennetti, a second-year doctoral student at the University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural and Environmental sciences. It turns out scientists aren’t exactly sure about the mysteries of four-leaf clovers, either. If you’ve ever scanned a field looking for a lucky four-leaf clover, then perhaps you’ve wondered why they are so rare. "People keep saying why don't I put them on eBay and see what people will pay for them," he fretted.Vincent Pennetti holds a white clover plant bred to bloom red flowers. "It's a good way to get rid of depression," he said, laughing.Īs to how he - a self-described "old man" in small-town Alaska, with no fixed address - would go about finding the right buyer, that's an answer, he says, he hasn't stumbled upon yet. Martin said he likes the idea, hoping the clover's luck could rub off on whoever bought them. With the record on the books, some folks have suggested he sell his collection, which sits in boxes at his eldest son's house. Martin fills those days now, as one might expect, still finding more clover and resting easy, believing no challenger comes close to his growing total. "It's a challenge, and life is a challenge," he said, struggling to explain why he does it. "I've been one of the most fortunate people in the world I truly mean that from my heart."Īt the very least, he's luckier than Kaminski, who died last month, still incarcerated - a fact that saddens Martin, as he considered the prisoner a worthy foe and one of the few to truly understand his pursuit. My kids are not burdens to society," he said. "I have no education to amount to anything beyond a couple years of high school. Last May, Guinness World Records certified Martin's collection - then at 111,060 - as the world's largest. He also had friends throughout the Kenai Peninsula, south of Anchorage, and they all pitched in as he pushed for the record, enlisting school and community groups to help count the clovers and place them between sheets of adhesive paper. Martin didn't, of course, have the whole world - by 2005 he was a retiree living on a fixed income - but he did have the time and a motor home to drive across the state, stalking his quarry. "The guy's got the whole world," Kaminski grumbled about Martin in a 2005 interview with a Pennsylvania newspaper, as the Alaskan crept closer to his record. (The previous record was 7,000.) But Kaminski, who spent much of his life in prison for various felonies, had recently caught a bad break: Authorities had transferred him to a minimum-security facility that didn't sprout much clover. That record-holding "gentleman" was George Kaminski, a Pennsylvania prisoner who had plucked 72,927 four-leaf clovers from prison yards, taking the title in 1995.
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