----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 9:29
PM
Subject: Re: [SpaceAgeRobin] Re: New
member
Gerry said: "I foresee a system,
official or otherwise, that publicizes more local favorites. The Bulletin
could not handle all of the date--the web can."--Gerry, done
rambling
Neil responds: First, Gerry, let me say,
"Welcome!" This is an interesting group that I joined with the messages
numbered in the mid 400's. Those numbers show only on the Yahoo
website,as you well know. If you have opted for e-mails--and if you
haven't, please do so. as I don't think I need to tell you that you will
miss the photos if you don't. What the Yahoo site would be useful for is
to go back and read forward the messages as they were posted as your time
permits. There are now over a thousand postings, and some are very
short, some (like some of mine) are rather long-winded.
A couple of topics will make no sense unless
you have been "lurking" for a while and figured all this out already.
The main one is the "SAGE" reference. Bill Burleson (aka "Lazy
Bill" and "oneofcultivars") suggested the spelled out form of
this, wherein SA refers to "Spage Age," G to genetics and E I forget
exactly what. Experiment? Endeavor? I have to go back, find
that message and re-read Bill's post, or else ask him what it was.
Probably there are several others who don't know also.
Related to SAGE is a whole lot of list
making and comparing. The purpose of
this is that beginning with 2005 (I'll come
back to 2004 in a moment) we hope to have settled on a list of a few--such as
three or four--varieties that all those who want to work on the SAGE project
will share in common. Then--we will try to make specific crosses, each
participant making the same crosses. The object is to get a very large
number of seedlings by adding our numbers together from a few "marker"
crosses aimed at uncovering some of the basic questions of how Space Age
traits are inherited.
While we're at it we'll probably keep track
of PBF and perhaps a couple other things if it doesn't complicate our task too
much.
I hope this helps make sense of some of what
you will read.
Now back to 2004. We aren't all going
to have the chosen varieties in the ground, so some of us are doing some horse
trading and some buying to get what we will need, and some pollen swapping
where that would be possible. We are going to make crosses with what we
have, using a few--perhaps four--guideline ideas that will help point the
direction our future crosses need to take.
Now to your comment quoted above. At
least some regions (and in perhaps a few areas, a group of regions working
together) already are doing just what you suggest--which says something about
how good an idea you have. Those regions that publish usually
do so with a short bulletin, usually quarterly, that carries a
few articles and some business of the region in print form. There is an
annual "popularity poll" of sorts in most of these, which does say something
about what varieties do well in that area. At least two of the regional
editors are in this group.
Glad to have you on board!
Neil Mogensen
