Re: Segements and Pollination/fertilization
I have noticed that there has been minimal response to this. I think we all
kept hoping someone else would take it. I was too busy to answer it then, but
will take a shot at it now.
Due to individual pollination of each section's seeds, the genetic
variation should be phenominal. But not as totally bewildering as it sounds.
Remember that since all the ova comes from the parent plant, you can, at least
be sure of those genes being contained somethere sithin the assorted seeds.
the variation comes from the ability to have a different pollen parent for
each segment's seeds.
While this increases the variation, since even with the same pollen
parent; each grain of pollen has a different make-up than any other. As a
result, yes, the seeds from each segment could still produce offspring that
varied quite a bit from the offspring produced by any other segment.
Many plants are polinated by only 1 grain of pollen. Yet there is
variation even among that seed. I beleive that the variation is more than just
between segment to segment, but the only way to discver this is by "variation
testing". We should have to take a pumpkin, carefully "deseed" it, noting
which seeds came from which section & then plant all the seeds in specially
marked plots. I would tend to want every seed planted, rather than a
representative sample. This in case variation was minor.
It would be interesting to test this, & also the variation among the
offspring of seeds contained in a single section. The only problem is how many
of us have a large estate with several hundred acres at our disposal?
TerryLynn
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