RE: AG's & hybrids
Kath, hybrid vigor is like increased performance by introducing
something to the plant from another plant that the original plant didn't
have, or some traits which make the combination perform better. Somebody
else add more to this please, this is just my brief, probably not the
best worded explaination.
Hybrids do have viable seeds, often performing better than either
parent. The mule path you're on has to do with 2 different varieties in
a species that normally don't breed, similar to a housecat and a cougar
(although, I don't know, it may be possible since a horse and a donkey
can make a mule, which I believe is sterile?) That's like a cucumber and
an AG don't cross even though they are both in the cucurbita family.
Planting hybrid seeds may not bear the original characteristics of
either parents, however I would think that there has been so much
inbreeding of the AG lines that they wouldn't be considered hybrids
anymore. HOWEVER, maybe they should since they never make an identical
copy of the original parent that the seeds came from. In tomatoes, if
you took for example, an heirloom such as Eva's Purple Ball, which is a
tennis ball sized fruit with a pinkish-purple color and nearly perfectly
round shaped, and saved seeds correctly so it didn't cross-pollinate,
the new fruits you grow should look nearly identical. In AG's, show me 2
that look even nearly identical!
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pumpkins@hort.net [o*@hort.net] On Behalf
Of Kathie Morgan
Sent: Friday, February 07, 2003 1:07 PM
To: pumpkins@hort.net
Subject: AG's & hybrids
If the only dumb question is the one that doesn't get asked ...
I read and hear a lot about hybrid vigor when in comes to making
crosses. No one has explained the term. I thought hybrids couldn't have
seeds, like mules, however vigorous they might be, like mules. So either
what I thought was wrong, in which case somebody set me straight,
please, or what we mean by hybrid in pumpkin selection is not a true
hybrid. Can someone explain this for me? Thanks! Kathie
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