Re: 300 pound stock
> Steve, breading big pumpkins with other big pumpkins does not ensure
>that these seeds will keep producing bigger offspring. Evolution works by
>making things fit for their environments. Bigger pumpkins don't necasarily
>mean they are more fit. Evolution may try to prohibit increasing sizes of
>pumpkins since they do take up huge amounts of water, and the larger a
>object
>is, the more surface area it has and the more water it loses to it's
>environment in relation to its volume. Just remember, survival of pumpkins
>doesn't have to be and most likely isn't related to how big they get.
> Greg
Greg, the reason why plants evolve to adapt to their environments is
actually a passive occurance usually, instead of plants "purposely"
chenging, although it appears that way. It is all about what genetic traits
are being allowed to be passed on, and which ones aren't. WE are
artificially creating an "environment" where only the biggest fruited plants
are allowed to survive, (well, more specifically, allowed to breed, which is
equivelant of "survive" in nature). Now some might say that in this
situation, the plants "know" that in order to survive, they must produce
large fruit. In actuality, what is happening is that the genetic stuff which
makes the fruit big becomes dominant in the gene pool, so that eventually
fruits will get bigger. Every seed is a bit different, (and this is
essential to plant evolution), and there are always mutations that occur.
When one or more seeds has a mutation or the right genetic stuff to make it
produce an even larger fruit, nature will (actually, WE will) allow this
plant to flourish and reproduce, passing this trait on. If a plant produces
small fruit, we usually will not allow this to breed.
Eventually the genes which allow the plant to thrive in this envronment
which we are partially creating by removing "small fruit" traits from the
available gene pool, and only allowing the "large fruit" traits to prosper,
will make plants that produce larger and larger fruits.
This, to the plant, IS evolving to fit it's envionment.
This also works the same with health and vigor in specific regions of the
world, (like the plants which thrive on mouuntain tops), and almost
everything else. This is one reason why I don't think plants (specific
plants, not necessarily a whole line), whose fruit split should be used for
pollinators, or the seeds from these fruits used for planting, in general.
Since by doing this we are passing along bad traits. We should strive to
remove these traits (or possibly lack of traits....or whatever combo might
make a plant more likely to have split fruit), from the A.G. gene pool.
As far as plants evolving to make better use of water, and the rest of what
you said....sure they will, IF there is a lack of water in the envronment,
because only the plants which can make use of the smaller amount of water
will be allowed to survive and pass on their traits for this.
As far as pumpkins not being able to get any bigger because of other
limitations such as splitting, etc., I am confident that nature can find a
way, as long as we stop breeding plants that DO split.
So, pumpkin survival in NATURE, of course isn't related to how big the
fruits they produce are, but in our hands....it is.
-Steve
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