|
Post by nicollas on Nov 18, 2014 7:44:22 GMT -5
Hi, i have hard times understanding what OP seeds means. I understand that it is a kind of antithesis of F1 hybrids, but isnt "open" pollinated a misleading term, because it is a controlled pollination (isolation, caging, hand pollination) to ensure the father is from same variety ? Sometimes i save seeds whose father is unknown, so it can be pure breed (self pollination, or from same variety), or hybrid. I dont think it is a landrace or grex due to the lack of effort to bring a lot of diversity (for example all seeds are from mother of the same variety). Is there a clear and concise way to describe them ? Is that what Joseph Lofthouse you mention as "promiscuously pollinated" ?
|
|
|
Post by rowan on Nov 18, 2014 13:28:31 GMT -5
As a very basic explanation, Open Pollinated is where the plant has working male and female parts and when pollinated with their own variety will come true from seed.
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Nov 18, 2014 15:17:47 GMT -5
I my opinion, there are two different definitions of the word "open pollinated" and they are antonyms of each other. Unless a writer defines the manner in which the phrase is being used, it seems to me, that it's impossible to know which meaning applies.
The common sense meaning of the phrase "open pollinated" means that the plants are allowed to cross pollinate however they happen to cross pollinate. We know the mamma, but we don't know who's the daddy. This is what the term "open pollinated" means to the general public. Sometimes in seed swaps I'll see the phrases "not-bagged", or "not-bagged with other varieties nearby" to get across the idea that pollination was not controlled.
The meaning of "open pollinated" typically used by the seed industry is that extreme technical measures are taken -- using highly inbred varieties -- to prevent any sort of cross pollination, so that the pollen donor is also from the same variety -- even the same plant -- so that the children will look exactly like their parents (stable). This meaning is contrary to the plain meaning of the words, and contrary to common sense. I'd go so far as to say that I believe it to be fraudulent. But that is where we are in the seed industry today. I think it would be more accurate for the seed industry to call this type of seed "Highly Inbred", or "Very Stable" instead of open pollinated.
I am currently using the phrase "promiscuously pollinated". It gets across the idea that pollination really was free and open, and that no measures were taken to prevent pollen from being transferred naturally between plants and between varieties.
I think that seed buyers could be better informed if catalogs offered more clarity about the genetic diversity of their offerings. For example: Peace seedlings offers "grex" seed, which are a cross pollinated mix from a number of different varieties. Wild Garden Seed offers a "landrace". Both of these designations imply the kind of genetic diversity and promiscuous pollination that Joe Shmoe expects when he reads the phrase "open pollinated" in a seed catalog.
Edit: I like the definition Oxbowfarm suggested later in this thread... Open pollinated = Not F1 Hybrid.
|
|
|
Post by ottawagardener on Nov 18, 2014 17:39:37 GMT -5
To further what Joseph says, I think that in most circles OP is intended to mean that if you saved seed from this variety (without letting pollen cross if possible from another variety) than you would get something that looked like the parent plant(s) or at least fell into the phenotypic parameters of the variety. It is intended to be contrasted with hybrid f1 in commercial seed catalogues. Sometimes this means a mix of characteristics - in other words, the phenotypic parameters are large. Sometimes it is exacting and could be said to be highly stable or inbred (depending). How extreme the measures are to keep the plant pure really seems to depend The irony, as you guys are pointing out, is that sometimes you wind up with something that is not very vigorous or resilient and certainly not genetically diverse especially when small number of parent plants are being used. There is a very strong contingent of people that exclusively look for heritage varieties as more natural (or for historic/preservation reasons). Some of those people are strongly averse to any crossing equating it to sloppiness or the loss of genetic material. Of course over the development of thoughts on modern Landraces (as in Joseph's work etc…), perhaps thoughts on this will change. I have no problem with OPs but I love PP too!
|
|
|
Post by oxbowfarm on Nov 18, 2014 19:15:43 GMT -5
I my opinion, there are two different definitions of the word "open pollinated" and they are antonyms of each other. Unless a writer defines the manner in which the phrase is being used, it seems to me, that it's impossible to know which meaning applies. The common sense meaning of the phrase "open pollinated" means that the plants are allowed to cross pollinate however they happen to cross pollinate. We know the mamma, but we don't know who's the daddy. This is what the term "open pollinated" means to the general public. Sometimes in seed swaps I'll see the phrases "not-bagged", or "not-bagged with other varieties nearby" to get across the idea that pollination was not controlled. The meaning of "open pollinated" typically used by the seed industry is that extreme technical measures are taken -- using highly inbred varieties -- to prevent any sort of cross pollination, so that the pollen donor is also from the same variety -- even the same plant -- so that the children will look exactly like their parents (stable). This meaning is contrary to the plain meaning of the words, and contrary to common sense. I'd go so far as to say that I believe it to be fraudulent. But that is where we are in the seed industry today. I think it would be more accurate for the seed industry to call this type of seed "Highly Inbred", or "Very Stable" instead of open pollinated. I am currently using the phrase "promiscuously pollinated". It gets across the idea that pollination really was free and open, and that no measures were taken to prevent pollen from being transferred naturally between plants and between varieties. I think that seed buyers could be better informed if catalogs offered more clarity about the genetic diversity of their offerings. For example: Peace seedlings offers "grex" seed, which are a cross pollinated mix from a number of different varieties. Wild Garden Seed offers a "landrace". Both of these designations imply the kind of genetic diversity and promiscuous pollination that Joe Shmoe expects when he reads the phrase "open pollinated" in a seed catalog. While I agree that "open pollinated" is an inaccurate term for what typical industry OP varieties actually represent, its the term we're stuck with. I DO take issue with the implied conspiracy to defraud the public on the part of the seed industry just by using the term OP. It took hold back when hybrid seed was first becoming available to agriculture, and its here to stay. "Open pollinated" was selected to describe traditional varieties that were maintained via isolation and selection, as compared to the new hybrids where pollination was VERY tightly controlled, And it is even more tightly controlled in modern hybrids than it was in the early days, what with the modern use of cytoplasmic male sterility. When you compare the effort involved in creating a hybrid, the level of control in an OP variety is orders of magnitude less. That's how we arrived at "open pollinated". I'm fairly certain the term originated not in the seed industry, but from the early hybrid researchers at agricultural universities. When the seed industry calls a variety OP, they aren't in any way attempting to make any promises about the genetic diversity of that variety, they are just stating in the accepted terminology that the seed is not a hybrid. And IMO, the seed buying public knows exactly what they mean by this, except for total newbies. If you want to talk about seed industry fraud, lets talk about the term "heirloom".
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Nov 18, 2014 20:49:24 GMT -5
I've been seeing the phrase "modern landrace" show up more and more. That sort of phrasing really works for me. I suppose it's time for me to adapt the phrase as a routine part of my conversations and writing.
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Nov 18, 2014 21:34:20 GMT -5
I think that on the whole that it is a good thing for the seed industry to use "open pollinated" in a way that seems contrary to the plain meaning of the phrase. It sets up conditions to create mental dissonance among some buyers. I think it's an especially important dissonance these days, considering the tremendous centralization that has occurred in the seed industry since the time when the term "open pollinated" meant something akin to it's plain meaning.
I hope that by calling attention to the dissonance that I can help to foster a sentiment of disintermediation in people's seed buying habits. Along the way it may encourage the preservation of a bit more genetic diversity.
|
|
|
Post by blueadzuki on Nov 18, 2014 23:42:00 GMT -5
On the flipside, I have heard some people elsewhere talk of "natural landraces/grexes" These are defined as landraces where ANY artificial intervention is forbidden. No records are supposed to be kept on the genetic background of any of the plants (so mom is just as much a blank card as dad), and any plant that makes seed has that seed added into the next generation's mix, without any selection favoritism based on how the plant performed, except that done by nature itself (no skewing in favor of the good ones, or roughing out the bad ones). It's supposed to be better in that eventually the crop will return to it's "natural" genetic balance I'm not saying I think this is a good idea (anymore than the person who suggested that garden legumes should have all of their wild ancestor toxin levels bred back into them to give them back the defenses our ancestors had no right to take away from them.) But I have heard it.
|
|
|
Post by steev on Nov 19, 2014 0:44:22 GMT -5
People can come up with some remarkable notions. I guess I'm just too anthropocentric and self-centered, since I fail to see why I'd want to bust my butt growing something that neither feeds nor pleases me. Not that I'd cast aspersions on anyone who found value in unrequited love for "weeds". Strikes me as no more irrational than love for professional sports.
|
|
|
Post by nicollas on Nov 19, 2014 1:28:03 GMT -5
Thanks the reply, that confirms what i'm thinking of the term "open pollinated". Maybee this term come from tomato breeding where the notions of "open pollinated"/heirloom and "controlled pollination"/hybrids would be more consistent due to imbreeding ?
|
|
|
Post by blueadzuki on Nov 19, 2014 6:30:48 GMT -5
People can come up with some remarkable notions. I guess I'm just too anthropocentric and self-centered, since I fail to see why I'd want to bust my butt growing something that neither feeds nor pleases me. Not that I'd cast aspersions on anyone who found value in unrequited love for "weeds". Strikes me as no more irrational than love for professional sports. Well, you ARE talking to the "weed hunter". I see the value of plants for their own sake, and that there probably are rights they have. I just haven't reached the point of deciding that their rights outweigh our rights to survival (or at least, haven't gotten to the point on acting on such a belief)
|
|
|
Post by steev on Nov 19, 2014 11:32:55 GMT -5
What interests us, pleases us; perfectly good reason to put effort into it.
|
|
|
Post by Carol Deppe on Nov 20, 2014 0:19:15 GMT -5
These days we use the phrase "open pollinated variety" to tell people that this is not an F1 hybrid, that it is a pure variety, and that it will breed true as long as you don't grow it in such a way that it crosses with other varieties. This means you can save your own seed, assuming you know how.
If you plant the open-pollinated variety next to another variety of the species and let "open-pollination" happen and save the seed, however, you will not end up with more of your open pollinated variety. You have the open pollination, but you no longer have an open pollinated variety, because you no longer have a pure variety. Your seed will be a mix of pure seed of your starting variety and hybrids with the other varieties that were around. So, as Joseph in pointing out, "open pollination" isn't really necessarily all that open. It is a controlled pollination situation. Uncontrolled pollination within the variety is permitted but no pollination outside the variety. I'll add another couple of comments in separate posts.
|
|
|
Post by Carol Deppe on Nov 20, 2014 0:28:24 GMT -5
People often think of open pollinated varieties as being finished and stable. Actually they aren't. In order to maintain an open pollinated variety you have to constantly select for the desired characteristics and rogue out off types. Mutations are quite common. Every individual plant is likely to have dozens of them. Most don't matter, but some do. Most new mutations move the plant in the direction of being more like wild plants and less desirable as food plants for people. So if you just save seed from all your plants or a random subset of them, your variety will actually deteriorate quite rapidly. One reason why many heirlooms don't measure up compared with hybrids is because the creators of the hybrids are putting their best breeding efforts into maintaining the inbreds that go into their hybrids. Meanwhile, often nobody is properly maintaining the op, and soon, it is just a name that is being sold associated with junk that no longer resembles the original heirloom at all.
There is really no such thing as "maintaining" a variety. There is only breeding. Either we breed to create something new with new characteristics. Or, if we like the characteristics in a variety, we must breed actively and select actively every generation in order to keep those characteristics.
|
|
|
Post by Carol Deppe on Nov 20, 2014 0:53:26 GMT -5
There are degrees of open-pollinating depending on how you configure your patch. For example, suppose I plant a mustard, a Brassica juncea, as a seed crop. (juncea is self fertile and both self pollinates and outcrosses.) It would be most convenient to plant the mustard as one long row. But if I do that, most plants will be pollinated mostly by themselves or by the two plants adjacent, and a bit by the two plants one plant farther down, but very little by other plants in the patch. I would prefer to have each plant be pollinated by as many other plants as possible so that the genes all mix up more completely. So instead of planting in the more convenient (for us) single long row, we plant in a series of short rows so as to create a block. That way each plant is pollinated by more other plants than when just in a row.
Second, the spacing matters. Many of the trips the pollinators make are between flowers on the same plant rather than flowers on adjacent plants. Where the plants are self-fertile, these same-plant trips lead to inbreeding. I would prefer as many pollinator trips as possible to be between plants instead of between different flowers on one plant so as to minimize inbreeding. So I plant my seed crops with tight enough spacing so that adjacent plants overlap and the flowering scapes from adjacent plants will be intermingled. If I planted at much more generous distances, I'd end up with a higher proportion of pollinator trips being between flowers on the same plant, leading to more inbreeding.
So if I and someone else start with the same open pollinated variety and he puts his in generously spaced single rows, and I put mine in more tightly spaced blocks, after even one generation we will have seed that is different. Mine will be a much larger proportion of outcrossed seed, with outcrosses of many different plants represented. His will be mostly inbred seed, and the outcrosses will represent fewer parent combinations.
If the plants are self-incompatible, as Brassica oleracea varieties generally are, the configuration of the patch can actually affect seed yield, since self-pollinations don't result in seed.
|
|