Hybrids

[Stacey]

erm right. well thats it then,cheers. i'm more confused than ever. I just dont get science. But I'm glad i got your brain working Peter,and in turn you got everybody elses working (except mine) lol

[Snadger]

I'm well impressed Peter!

I haven't played with simple Mendel progeny theories for years! I doubt I could have remembered it all.

He worked with sweet peas and fruit flies didn't he?

Well done!

Glad to hear that was just the simplified version!

[TheOtherHalf]

erm right. well thats it then,cheers. i'm more confused than ever. I just dont get science. But I'm glad i got your brain working Peter,and in turn you got everybody elses working (except mine) lol

Stacey - let us know what exactly you're not getting, and we can try to explain it in the simplest possible terms. No maths, promise!

[NattieG]

Peter, that took me right back to my year four biology lessons........blue eyes, brown eyes, blue eyes, brown eyes..... Well done! I understood it anyway!

[Stacey]

Well I sort of got it until the big maths/science thing (I was good at every subject bar those two!). For a start if something is a hybrid could it still be organic? I now understand why you would create a hybrid plant but not how. I dont understand why if you grow two varietys of beans together you cant save the seed cos of cross pollination. Maybe if pollination was explained to me a bit more? im guessing that hybrids are cross pollinations or something yes? I know I sound so dumb but its really getting to me not understanding this!!

[Cutecumber]

You can save the seed of anything you like, but you won't know what you are getting as an end result.

Sometimes what you get will be similar to your original, sometimes it will be quite different. That variation is caused by genetics as Peter explained, and can be used to produce consistent crops only when you can understand and control the process which he has outlined. We pay money to seed companies to do this so we don't have to get brain ache and can get vegetables which look the same and crop in the same amount of time, for example.

It's about certainty - think of it from a farmer's perspective more than a domestic veg grower.

[Flummery]

Cross pollination happens when the insects transfer pollen from one flower to another. Some plants are self-fertile. If there isn't another in the vicinity they can still set fruit. This is useful for someone wanting just one apple tree - you can make sure you get a self fertile variety.
In cross pollination, you are transferring genetic material from one plant to another - this is how you get hybrids. You can save the seeds but you don't necessarily get the plant you thought you would. Plants which are not F1 or F2 hybrids are called open pollinated - because you can leave them to be pollinated freely and still keep the same variety.
Some people continuously save the seeds of their biggest tom, longest bean etc which gives a strain of plants with characteristics they like. I think Snadger is doing this with some of his stuff.

I hope I haven't made this more confusing?

[moggssue]

Okay, what I THINK is a very simple example of cross pollination in my garden - two years ago I planted some white lupins and some purple lupins, this year I have new baby lupins which have self seeded from these parents and they've just flowered ... pink!! Cross pollination at work in the flower bed me thinks....!

[Peter]

Well I sort of got it ....For a start if something is a hybrid could it still be organic? ....

Provided neither of the parents was a GM plant then yes it would still be organic.
Every seed produced from an organic farmers field next to a chemical farmers field would be organic, provided the chemical farmer was not planting a GM crop.
Organic is more about HOW something is grown than WHAT variety is grown. (Excluding Genetically Modified [GM] plants.)

A GM plant is one where the genes of DNA have been chopped around in a laboratory, by some ??? technique, to say insert a bit of DNA from a fish species that lives under the polar icecap into a tomato plant so it does not freeze in cold conditions. (Yes I believe that has been done).

Controlled Pollination.
You are chaste, religious, believe in the sanctity of marriage and were a virgin when you married.
Your husband is the same.
Your children are the offspring of you and your husband.

Open pollination.
You are a chav and do not believe in contraception.
You go down the town every friday and saturday night, drink two bottles of vodka and have it off with any male who shows even a passing interest in your horizontal abilities, sometimes several the same night.
Heaven knows who is the father of each of your children, you can't remember and they are trying to forget at the clap clinic.

[Snadger]

Provided neither of the parents was a GM plant then yes it would still be organic.
Every seed produced from an organic farmers field next to a chemical farmers field would be organic, provided the chemical farmer was not planting a GM crop.
Organic is more about HOW something is grown than WHAT variety is grown. (Excluding Genetically Modified [GM] plants.)

A GM plant is one where the genes of DNA have been chopped around in a laboratory, by some ??? technique, to say insert a bit of DNA from a fish species that lives under the polar icecap into a tomato plant so it does not freeze in cold conditions. (Yes I believe that has been done).

Controlled Pollination.
You are chaste, religious, believe in the sanctity of marriage and were a virgin when you married.
Your husband is the same.
Your children are the offspring of you and your husband.

Open pollination.
You are a chav and do not believe in contraception.
You go down the town every friday and saturday night, drink two bottles of vodka and have it off with any male who shows even a passing interest in your horizontal abilities, sometimes several the same night.
Heaven knows who is the father of each of your children, you can't remember and they are trying to forget at the clap clinic.

You have such wonderful analogies Peter!

[Flummery]

Yes he does - but we remember them, don't we?

[Stacey]

yeah i think im getting it now. so i take it at allotments cross pollination could be a bit of a problem??because obviously people will be growing there prefferred varieties,not always the same as yours,so when you save your seeds you may well end up with a hybrid? even though you didnt want to?

[Peter]

yeah i think im getting it now. so i take it at allotments cross pollination could be a bit of a problem??because obviously people will be growing there prefferred varieties,not always the same as yours,so when you save your seeds you may well end up with a hybrid? even though you didnt want to?

Spot on.


To control you get into things like hiding the female flowers in bags, then picking the male flower you want and using a paintbrush to transfer pollen onto the bagged flower before re-closing the bag.

All round it is easier for the "normal" experience level gardener to just buy fresh seeds each year. (or two).

[Stacey]

ah rite. its quite an interesting subject really. Maybe you should go into explaining f2 hybrids after all......... ;-) xx

[Flummery]

Don't get him going!