But Pennetti doesn’t want to be the one to make that happen.
With enough research funding and today’s CRISPR technology, Pennetti said, it could be possible to create a four-leaf clover in the lab one day. Gene-editing technology has opened the door for all sorts of advances in crop sciences-not to mention the fight against deadly diseases.
Could four-leaf clovers be genetically engineered? “One guy last year ordered $300 worth of clovers just to give out at a senior living community for St. As a side hustle, he preserves and sells four-leaf clovers on Etsy for people who want them as novelties or wedding gifts. Pennetti’s personal line of clover, bred from some of the first plants he discovered nine years ago, grow in his basement under an LED lamp. He tends to a variety of ornamental clover plants at a UGA greenhouse that have been bred for decorative shapes and leaf markings some even grow pink flowersįinding a four-leaf clover isn’t easy, but one UGA doctoral student is on a mission to research, find, and breed this mysterious plant. While his research focuses on creating better turfgrasses for the consumer market, he remains committed to white clover. That passion eventually brought him down to Georgia to pursue his doctorate. Pennetti has been breeding clover ever since. Pennetti reached out for advice from Parrott, who in turn gave him pointers on plant breeding over Skype. That’s around the time he learned about Parrott’s research concerning multifoliate clover genetic markers at the University of Georgia. I was just standing around looking for four-leaf clovers.”īut he wasn’t having any luck at that either.Įventually, as a high schooler waiting for the bus, he finally spotted a pair of four-leaf clovers. So coaches sent him to the outfield, where he would be less of a defensive liability. “My parents really wanted me to be good at baseball,” Pennetti recalled. Pennetti’s longtime fascination with clover started while playing little league in Long Island, New York. Becoming a four-leaf clover breeder Vincent Pennetti, a second-year UGA plant breeding and genetics student, found his passion for plant breeding by searching for four-leaf clovers. “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. Vincent Pennetti holds a white clover plant bred to bloom red flowers.
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