Triploids are fertile-- was Another Lycoris question
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