Re: Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2001 08:53:59 -0500
- To: hosta-open@mallorn.com
- Subject: Re: Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2001 08:53:59 -0500
- From: h*@open.org
- Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2001 09:47:53 -0800 (PST)
Mary:
>The plants that most of us are working with are so mixed, carrying so
>many dormant genes that I just figured anything might show up in the
>seedlings. As we move farther away from the species more and more
>traits are involved therefore our back crossing should bring some of
>these out.
You are basically correct. The hosta genome we work with in the
garden is a mix of numerous species. When we cross species we bring
together new gene combinations that didn't exist before. Then as we
further breed with these we then re-segregate these genes into new
combinations that then interact with existing genes. Sometimes this
will lead to new traits showing up. All this mixing up of the genes
leads to a lot of heterozygosity which leads to a lot of variation in
the seedling populations we look at. However, if both parents have a
lot of dominant genes, then you can cross them and the F1 generation
will appear to not have much variation, but the heterozygosity is
still there.
Joe Halinar
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