Re: [Re: Re:upright leaves]
- To: s*@onelist.com
- Subject: Re: [Re: [sibrob] Re:upright leaves]
- From: R* H*
- Date: 19 Dec 99 09:20:38 PST
From: Robert Hollingworth <Cyberiris@netscape.net>
Well Andrew, regarding diploid and tetraploid foliage, I think the simple
answer is that, as with diploids, tetraploids can have very attractive or very
unattractive foliage and everything in-between. I'm not sure I agree that,
innately, diploids have more graceful foliage, but that's in the eye of the
beholder. I think, equally, you might say that because the tet foliage has
more "substance" it tends to hold whatever form it does have more firmly, for
good or bad. With either diploids or tetraploids, if the hybridizer doesn't
pay attention to foliage values in choosing parents and selecting seedlings,
he/she can end up with pretty flowers atop a rat's nest. But, once you get
lines with nice foliage established, the chances are that the progeny will
have these characters also, and the foliage problem is minimized. You are dead
on with your comments about the relative difficulties of tetraploid breeding.
Seed set is almost always much less than with diploids, so unless you make an
unholy number of crosses, you probably cannot generate thousands of seedlings
as you can with diploids, and getting a new seedling which combines many good
characteristics is a numbers game. So breeding with tetraploids has a higher
frustration level, but, to me at least, this is compensated by the fact that I
see more unusual forms, patterns, deeper color saturations etc. and just
drop-dead gorgeous flowers on the tets than the diploids among our seedlings.
I believe that whatever you can get in the diploids you can get more of it
with tets. But, you still have to have these flowers on a good plant that
presents them well in a garden setting. More isn't always better, of course.
There are some glorious new diploids appearing (lots of them from Marty), and
I still work with them and always will, but the rewards from tet breeding
still exceed the frustrations as far as I'm concerned.
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