Wierd Northern problem with Maize roots

[RPH]

hey all,

A fellow lab worker keeps getting a strange result with his northerns -
his probe is only lighting up spots corrsponding to the loading wells on
his gel.  The RNA that he is blotting is prepared from the root tips of
maize seedlings.  The gels look pretty good - no significant degradation
and seemingly proper migration of ribisomal RNAs.  He is using a
standard Guanidine/HCl RNA prep which I use for Arabidopsis seedling
tissues and get good results from.

Has anyone ever had a problem with mRNA migration in a regular
formaldehye gel?  When running the gels, we have noticed significant
residue in the wells after electrophoresis - something that I never see
with my arabidopsis samples.  Anyone have any suggestions?

thanks in advance

Charles Logsdon
Hangarter lab
IU