Triploids are fertile-- was Another Lycoris question

totototo@telus.net totototo@telus.net
Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:54:07 PDT
On 17 Aug 2009, at 12:25, Kenneth Hixson wrote:

> . . . Open Pollinated (OP) seed to some people is worthless.

Luther Burbank, the "great American plant breeder" seems in historical 
retrospect to have been either a con man or hopelessly naive, but his methods, 
as documented in the weird multi-volume "Harvest of the Years", are worth 
mentioning.

His practice was to acquire specimens of as many different species as he could 
in a plant group he was interested in, then interplant these and let the bees 
do the work.

From the seed he would grow a second generation and from those select only the 
plants that deviated from the norm the most, then use those as the basis for 
further generations.

All open-pollinated seed.

One can argue back "so what, his methods yielded little of significance", but 
it's not my fight.


-- 
Rodger Whitlock
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Maritime Zone 8, a cool Mediterranean climate
on beautiful Vancouver Island

http://maps.google.ca/maps/…


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