Selfing
Here are some thoughts that I posted on BP.com and thought it a good subject
to get going on both lists. So what are we seeing these days? Whats
working?
Most of the hotties come from heterozygous(outbreed) parents. The idea of
selfing is to isolate a gene that gives you a desired trait. It works well
when you have a specific trait in mind like flavor or color. By selfing you
can increase the probability of seeing the trait you want. But you can also
drop traits such as vigor and disease resistance invisible traits. Of course
the idea we want with selfing is to increase the predictability of monsters.
I think that we are always going to be stuck with a small amount of seed in
a batch that demonstrate huge and heavy and the rest somewhere in between.
Why because there are many genes that contribute to that outcome and the
trait were looking for is so heavily influenced by the environmental
factors. If a gene is like a coin and the law of probability says you can
hit heads 50% of the time ...imagine the probability of lining up 5 coins
and hitting heads. So I don't see how selfing is going to work if you don't
plant out the entire stock and pick the best....and do it again and again
what exactly are we trying to isolate large root system, triple tap roots at
each junction...we have to be specific and all the seeds would have to be
treated equally........but the jury is still out...not enough data...to
know...MB
Will the odds ever improve?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Pumpkin-growing archives: http://www.hort.net/lists/pumpkins/
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE PUMPKINS
