Re: Selfing
Best regards Andrew and all the others contributing to this thread about
genetics!
This topic may be one small step for man but it's sure one heckuva giant
leap for
Michel here.......I don't know if my brain can rise to the occasion on
genetics.
It seems to me that atlantic giants are not like corn at all. Most of
the pumpkins
resulting from seeds of the mother hardly resemble the mother at all.
Give me a choice between the 845Bobier00 or the 1337Houghton02 seed to plant
and you know which one I'd chose! (smile). I kick my butt that I didn't
know about
cloning last year while my 845Bobier00 plant was still
growing.......darn!!!!!
I wish I had a degree in Biology and maybe I'd understand better but my
personal
opinion is that we are all gamblers trying to reduce the chances of
failure by
making the best crosses we can and hoping for the best and at the same
time maximizing
our fruit size thru the use of proven gardening practices.
I think that selfing two different genetic lines a few years and then
crossing them
is the way to produce a better pumpkin if I understand this thread
correctly.
This process can be expedited by cloning plants indoors the entire year
and producing
two or three pumpkins a year (selfed) just big enough for ripe seeds to
self again.
I know many people don't have room to do this but I can do it here with
two or
three plants.
Since all of the seeds from any given pumpkin might have a different genetic
makeup I think this will always be a matter of chance and only by so
many people
trying the seeds can we produce better and larger pumpkins.
My hat goes off to anyone with enough space and time to plant all of the
4 to 600
seeds from his/her pumpkin.
Cheers to the new growers!
Michel in Germany
Andrew Papez wrote:
>Hi list,
>
>The way they do it in corn is to take all the seeds from a cob and plant it,
>then select the best cob(color, taste etc) from all those plants and then
>plant all the seeds from that cob and repeat the whole process. This takes
>years and we are only planting one or two seeds from each pumpkin. To
>isolate the desirable traits in a pumpkin you would have to plant all the
>seeds out of a particular pumpkin (cross) you are interested in and take the
>most desirable(color, size weight etc) and plant all the seeds from that one
>and repeat the whole process again. Maybe in ten years you would have
>isolated the desirable traits. We are not currently doing that and is
>impossible to isolate the genes from one or two seeds. Still a crap shoot
>the way I see it.
>
>drew
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Cliff Warren" <cliffrwarren@hotmail.com>
>To: <pumpkins@hort.net>
>Sent: Wednesday, February 05, 2003 5:43 PM
>Subject: Re: Selfing
>
>
>>Mike and all:
>>
>>Great topic!
>>
>>I've been studying what has been said (written) by
>>Nic Welty, Joe Ailts, Mike Nepereny and others.
>>Here is what I understand about the F1/F2 hybrid
>>theory: (note that this is theory...)
>>
>>* To create an F2, cross your fruit with something from the mother line.
>>* F2's are created to enhance consistency.
>>* A "self" or "sib" pollination qualifies as an F2.
>>* Make an F1 by starting with an F2 and then crossing another line.
>>
>Ideally,
>
>>one would hope to get some desirable characteristic from the new line.
>>(Thick walls,
>>nice color, etc.)
>>* The worlds best seeds have had elements of this theory in their
>>background, intentional or not.
>>
>>Note from history: which two seeds have had most
>>impact? I would suggest the 935 Lloyd and 567.5 Mombert.
>>Many hot seeds today, come from these lines, example:
>>723, 940 Mombert 98, etc.
>>
>>Each of these was created by some degree of inbreeding
>>in the lines, to reduce the number of parents, keep the
>>gene pool more pure and thus create consistency. Then,
>>you introduce a new line. Perhaps this is where the
>>concept of "hybrid vigor" comes in... not just from
>>endlessly crossing, but by starting with two fairly
>>pure sources and then crossing.
>>
>>Well anyway, I'm no expert, but any theory is fun to
>>play with. I think it fits what we've seen.
>>
>>Take a look at the 846 Calai background. It takes
>>fairly pure 567.5 Mombert genetics and crosses that
>>with Lloyd, also fairly pure. That seed of course
>>speaks for itself.
>>
>>Once again, great topic. Lets use this list!
>>
>>Regards, Cliff
>>
>>
>>
>>>From: Mike and Vickie Brock <vbrock@mcn.org>
>>>Reply-To: pumpkins@hort.net
>>>To: <pumpkins@hort.net>
>>>Subject: Selfing
>>>Date: Wed, 05 Feb 2003 13:56:37 -0800
>>>
>>>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?
>>>
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>>
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