Re: More on Genetics...
Joe, Glad your here. this to is my favorite subject too. Recently I
decided to reread" The Pumpkin King" a book about Howard Dill the second
read is so much better than my first 6 years ago. Apparently Dill was a
self taught plant breeder.
I like the simplicity of the description how genes work , it helps us
layman understand more. They compare the genes to a a deck of cards each
card having a characteristic trait. As the cards are dealt certain
combinations are winning hands. Or also can be seen as surviving genes.
Why surviving? because we predominately plant from the winning hand. So
the good is constantly brought to the top thus this a very good way to do
selection.
I believe that this process works well and how far from the original
beginning are we? The question I have is if there is a focal point where
seeds were planted from Dills best back then..............................
and then we selected from that winning combo and breed and so on and so
on...........interelated breeding had to occur.
It would seem wise to find out if Dills Alantic Giant were already a
hybrid before trying to go back and duplicate what already might have
been done?
I think that there could be dicussion on wether it would be wise for us all
to self pumpkins. Surely a must now and again to keep the status quo.
But that seems to put a cap on that cross? Take for instance our most
consistant producer the 567.5 mombert The seed appears to have peaked at
950.............now if we had selfed this 567.5 til the cows come
home.......... could that be capping its potential offspring to only go to
950 ?? Or by what we have seen lately that selective crossing it with
other holland based seeds seems to allow the mark to be set even higher.
Any comment Joe are appreciated and keep it simple I am
limited......................Mbrock
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