Re: Pumpkin genetics/Bob Marcellus' comments


Hi Pumpkiners

I have a comment about what Bob and Mike have been talking about.  I
think part of the confusion lies in the fact that a pumpkin and the
seeds it produces have different genetic make-ups.  The final size of
a pumpkin depends on how well the plant was grown and the plant's
genetics.  The final size does not depend on the genes carried by the
pollen and ovules (egg) during pollination, which resulted in the
pumpkin.  So once you plant a pumpkin seed, all you can do is grow the
plant as best as you can.  Pollinating the flowers with pollen from
some exceptional pumpkin plant will not effect the size of your
pumpkin.  It will only effect the seeds and next year's pumpkins.

This may seem obvious, but I have seen people list seeds by describing
the pumpkin it came from.  Since seeds receive only half their genes
from the pumpkin plant they came from, the seed should be listed by
describing both the male and female plant.  Therefore,

name of pumpkin = weight   grower's name   year grown

name of seed = name of largest pumpkin on male plant 
                               x 
               name of largest pumpkin on female plant


The parents of a pumpkin can then be recorded as the name of the seed
which produced that pumpkin.  I think the current method does not
follow this.  If anyone disagrees with this, I'd like to hear from you.


-Jeff

 
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