Inbreeding depression

T O enoster@hotmail.com
Wed, 04 Feb 2015 10:29:21 PST
I have been thinking a lot about growing species of "rare" bulbs from seed saved from our own plants. In nature, when the population of a given species is very small, they can succumb to inbreeding depression. I wonder if this happens in our own gardens with, say, species of Crocus that are rare in cultivation. By saving our own seed, are we in effect creating non-resistant forms of otherwise hardy and fit species? Could this explain the phenomenon of "hybrid vigor", by expanding the gene pool?

This is of course a rhetorical question, it was inspired by Ian Young's Bulb Log

-Travis Owen
Rogue River, OR

http://amateuranthecologist.blogspot.com/



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