Re: Pumpkin size - Seed size

     Steve, I think you are missing the point of what evolution is.  It is
not the thriving of plants or an organism and it can not be caused by us
aiding our pumpkins.  Pumpkins getting bigger is not evolution.  No traits
are being selected against to cause pumpkins to get bigger.  And since
evolution is the selection against an undesirable trait of an organism, I
guess they are not evolving.  
    And I never said or implied that pumpkins could think of make decisions. 
I assumed you knew that.  But they do respond to stress.  They produce fruit
and seeds because of it and may produce less because of the lack of it.  And
you say that fruit was created so that animals would eat it and spread the
seeds.  Well, a larger pumpkin would make this much harder for an animal to
get into the seed cavity wouldn't it.  I don't think a plant would adapt in
this way for it's own survival.  This is not a good trait for a plant to
have.  In fact, it seems like it will lead to pumpkins of the AG varitey
becoming harder to bread.
--- Great Pumpkin <greatpumpkin99@hotmail.com> wrote:
> In a message dated 5/19/00 4:21:45 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
> pumpkinsandchess@yahoo.com writes:
> 
> >    Steve, you say that "Evolution doesn't really have anything to do with
> >  "babying" our plants." That doesn't really affect the genes at all"  I 
> >would
> >  have to disagree.  Babying our plants doesn't allow undesirable traits 
> >fall
> >  away, thus they are not evolving since evolution is the process of
> >  eliminating these genes.  Babing the plants in the AG community is 
> >selecting
> >  some good genes but also a lot of bad genes.  There are many genes that 
> >would
> >  be selected against that we as growers don't allow.  And I would
> 
> 
> How the plants are cared for would not make any traits "fall away" or make 
> any be gained, but it could MASK traits, especially bad ones (as you said
> in 
> an earlier post), so that they do not factor into our decisions on making 
> crosses. But the traits a plant is "born" with are always there, no matter 
> how the plant is taken care of culturally.
> Plant evolution has nothing to do with any individual plant changing in any
> 
> way. It is simply the process of which plants are allowed to thrive,
> (either 
> determined by nature, or us), which determines the makeup of the available 
> gene pool. It is basically the process of elimination by what seeds from 
> which plants are allowed to grow on and breed. Individual plants do not 
> spontaneously change their own genetics.
> 
> >also have to
> >  say that seed production is caused by stress.  Try keeping the nitrogen 
> >high
> >  when trying to set fruit.  It doesn't work too well.  This is because
> the
> >  plant feels no need to reproduce itself.
> 
> 
> I don't think that plants really can make intelligent decisions like this! 
> (Although wouldn't that be cool?)....but evolution of them might have made 
> them more likely to produce seed FIRST. So if there is a limited supply of 
> nutrients, it could trigger more energy to be focused on seed production. 
> When there is a good supply of nutrients and there is no stress, more
> energy 
> might be put into fruit production as well as seeds. Remember that the
> fruit 
> os also a necessary part of reproduction, since the purpose of the fruit
> was 
> a way to get animals to eat and distribute seeds, over millions of years, 
> only the plants that produced edible fruit that were most attractive to 
> animals were able to repsoduce, passing on these traits. Over time, if we 
> allow plants with less seed to pass on it's traits by planting those few 
> seeds, eventually seed production of this line will get weaker and weaker, 
> until there are NO seeds, then (unless we start cloning) obviously this
> will 
> cease to happen. But how do you think seedless watermelons were developed? 
> Not stress. It is all genetics.
> 
> 
> >       You also said "Of course we should also focus on  seed production, 
> >too.
> >  But over time, this will take care of itself, since  obviously if there 
> >are
> >  not many seeds, the trait that causes this will stop being passed on! " 
> 
> >I
> >  don't think it is a specific gene that can be selected against.  I think
> 
> >it
> >  is more of a gene that all plants have.        Greg
> >
> 
> I'm not sure what you mean. It isn't one "gene", it is just another trait 
> like any other property of a plant. If we tried, we could probably breed 
> them to be seedless (or almost seedless). But who would want to do that,
> (on 
> purpose, anyway)?
> 
> -Steve
> 
> 
> 
> 
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