Re: HYB: Repeat cross results

Several hybridizers have mentioned rather different results on the same cross repeated from one year to another. Modern evolutionary thought points out that the environment not only works on the entire plant to select those with the greatest survivability, it also works on the plant parts, in this case the pollen and the ova. A wet, cold season may allow different pollen grains or ova to mature than those allowed to mature in a less wet, warmer year, depending on the genes those gamets carry. In fact, it may be that a cross made early in the season may produce somewhat different results than the same cross made late in the season if the weather has changed!

This has a number of implications. A cross make in one part of the world may give different results from the same cross made in another. A flower from the top of the stalk may give slightly different results that a flower at the bottom. etc. etc. 

Fred Kerr
Rainbow Acres

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