Re: Genetics 101 & 102
Ok, my turn. on the topic of saving pollen: It's very difficult. I had
zero success with freezing pollen last year, but will continue to try. I
think my problem was humidity. I'll be using some kind of dessicant with
the pollen next time. The big name when it comes to freezing pollen is
Lincoln Mettler. However, from what I'm told, he's only had around 50%
success with frozen pollen, and thet's by freezing it with liquid nitrogen!
I encourage all of you out there to try to experiment with this next year.
However, wait until after you've already set the fruit you want. There's no
sense in experimenting with possible good fruit. Play around with blossoms
on the secondaries, some you won't mind aborting. Now, onto breeding.
Personally, I think that there can be hybrid vigor with giants. That's
probably what makes the 567.5 special. However, I would also say that if
there is such a thing, it may not always work. I could certainly see vigor
leading to frequent splits, both with the vine and fruit. However, I would
rather try a seed that I thought would have the most hybrid vigor than an
inbred line. That's why i made the cross I did with my 315 UOW this year.
Two unrelated inbred lines. Now, the 962 Wilmese grown this year was grown
from a 706.5 Wilemese, which was self pollinated for 3 generations, and
possibly more since there was an open pollination before that, and a "not
specified" before that. This really helps to show that self pollinating
doesn't slow them down any. Since the 962 was selfed also(making that 4
generations), I would say that if you could find a seed that has a history
of being selfed that much or more, you might be able to make an excellent
cross. Time will tell.
Andy Wolf
best: 535* uow
-----Original Message-----
From: Matt Moore <bodger_man@yahoo.com>
To: pumpkins@mallorn.com <pumpkins@mallorn.com>
Date: Friday, December 15, 2000 11:23 PM
Subject: Re: Genetics 101 & 102
> I'm not a genetisist either, but I used to raise poultry
>for show. Standard proceedure was to line breed to "fix" a
>desired quality in a line.
> Most breeders considered the best way to do this was to
>breed father to daughter, or mother to son. Very difficult
>with AGs since they're annuals. I wonder if pollen could be
>harvested and stored(maybe freezing it), you could then
>breed last year's "father" to this years daughter. I also
>wonder if it would be worth the trouble, since pumpkins may
>behave differently than chickens. You'd also have to save
>pollen from every line, untill the females came to maturity
>to know which plants had the right stuff. But if it's
>do-able, then you could even use the same pollen that the
>that was used to get the large fruit, ensuring that at
>least one half of the genes would be identical to the big
>fruit.
> The only time poultry breeders would break from line
>breeding was to introduce desired qualities that the
>existing line didn't possess. The ofspring were then
>checked to see if they got the wanted quality. If you then
>wanted to boost that quality, you'd breed that offspring
>back to the parent that had that quality to enforce that
>gene type. You could then go back to line breeding to
>better set that type. This style of breeding is much easier
>to do with poultry than with AGs. But I thought some of it
>may be usable with AGs. I think harvesting pollen would be
>extremely usefull if it can be done, maybe someone in the
>group has experience with the viability of it.
>
>Good fishing!
>Matt Moore
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