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Post by walt on Jan 4, 2017 15:17:30 GMT -5
Had coatless weather from Christmas to New Year. Now another cold wave, but only down to 10F or 15F last night That would be about -7 or -8C. Just figured it in my head but it is close enough. Typical for Kansas this time of year. But about anything could be called typical in Kansas this time of year. We old timers keep a heavy coat and a quilt is the car all winter, cause you never know.
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Post by walt on Dec 28, 2016 13:04:59 GMT -5
In order for someone to get the rda of vitamin A I have read that a child would have to eat something like several pounds of it per day, hardly a reasonable expectation in normal circumstances, much less where food of any kind is difficult to access. The website billw posted speaks to this. Golden rice alone won't provide enough vitamin A. But many people are living with lower vitamin A than would be best. Golden rice would raise the vit. A level in their diet and that might be a good thing. If you go back to my first post on this topic, you will see that I pointed out that growing a few hot peppers might be more useful in providing vitamin A than golden rice would. But it doesn't have to be only one or the other. I see no difference between golden rice vs. non-golden rice and yellow corn vs. white corn, orange carrots vs. white carrots, etc. The website posted by billw also says that after a breeder has backcrossed the gene Vitamin A gene into a locally popular rice variety, seed is to be sold without a contract. So as I read it, a breeder who uses the golden rice will have to sign a contract, the farmer who uses the resulting seeds won't have to sign any contracts. In fact, as I read it, the contract the breeder signs says the breeder is not allowed to require buyers to sign any stinking contract. I paraphrased that, the website doesn't mention any odor or lack of odor in contracts.
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Post by walt on Dec 28, 2016 12:47:50 GMT -5
I'm not an expert on the subject, but it sure looks like they require an agreement in place... Golden Rice licensing: www.goldenrice.org/Content1-Who/who4_IP.phpIs there a company out there that will sell me a packet of Golden Rice seed, no strings attached? I just read the website you posted. Yes there is an agreement required. You would have to agree to not sell seeds with the golden gene for more than the price of the same amount of the same variety without the golden gene. There are other limitations listed on the website, limitations that to me sound reasonable to people who aren't out to get rice off this. But that is a personal point of view. Other people might find one or more of the limitations unacceptable. They own it for a while longer, and they decide what limitations they will impose. This is a new case of the golden rule, whoever owns the gold makes the rules.
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Post by walt on Dec 28, 2016 12:01:56 GMT -5
I hit hit the wrong thing when going for the edit button and now can't figure out how to take off the approve thingy, didn't mean to up vote my own post!! IPads are not a friend to stubby fingers... That's OK. It'll save me the time of approving your post. Not that it takes a long time to hit the approve button. I read about the golden rice many years ago in a generally respected news magazine. But that doesn't mean it's gospel. I wonder, it has been a long time since GMOs were first made. Patents generally last 20 years. The guitar patent Keith Kirstenbrock and I had is long expired. And GMOs were out before my guitar-making days. So some should be expiring soon, if not already expired. Who will keep track of what has GMOs when they are no longer owned by anyone? Will that be a whole new problem?
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Post by walt on Dec 27, 2016 14:23:18 GMT -5
You got it right.
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Post by walt on Dec 27, 2016 13:23:33 GMT -5
Okra is perhaps the most genetically diverse crop that I have worked with. Genetically diverse within varieties, and between varieties. I see lots of diversity in some species, hardly any in other species. All true but also genetic diversity between species. Chromosome counts reported from Africa, India, and Japan differ widely. The count from Japan seems to be a diploid. India seems to generally have an amphiploid type with chromosomes from 2 (unknown) species. Africa, where okra is generally thought to have been domesticated, gives a number similar to those in India. But in wetter parts of Africa, there is a new amphiploid species, with the old chromosomes from the older amphiploid African okra, plus the chromosomes from a species colonists introduced as an ornamental from India. This relatively new species is called perennial okra, as in the tropics it lives about 18 months. There are now many varieties of it. Though not as many varieties as of the older, drought adapted African species. I was breeding okra, tomatoes, onions and peppers in Niger 1978-1981. At the time I left, taxonomists hadn't seperated out the different groups of okra, which I consider species. Perhaps they have done so now. But back to brassicas.
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Post by walt on Dec 23, 2016 16:42:30 GMT -5
Back in 1977, I did a term paper on banana breeding. Back then, the gene base of bananas was being broadened by breeding at the diploid level then crossing improved diploids with the triploid Gros Micheal and getting tetraploids, which could also be inter-bred. Then the improved diploids and the improved tetraploids could be intercrossed to get more sterile triploids. The reason for needing sterile cultivars was that banana seeds can break a tooth if you bite down on it. People would be hired to sit all day squishing bananas to find a seed, maybe one in 100 bananas. But some people will work really cheap, so that didn't keep the crosses from being worthwhile. I mean un-economical. But the problem with bananas is that there are a couple of diseases spreading for which there is no resistance in the whole world-wide gene pool, wild and everything. So the only hope presented by the huge banana companies is gene splicing. I'm not entirely against that, but I know some people who will give up bananas when those get on the market. Another solution is to only grow bananas in small-holdings that are relatively isolated and effectively in quarantine. But that would be a lot of trouble and hurt the stock price of banana companies. So GMOs it is, right?
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Post by walt on Dec 23, 2016 16:07:19 GMT -5
From Joseph on the Tomatoville forums. This is interesting, considering that there are probably more varieties of tomato then of any other garden crop. So are all those tomato varieties just sharing a tiny pool of genes? It would make sense that they are all inbred, considering how fragile they are. But I'm just wondering about other vegetables with much less (seeming) diversity. Do they make up for it by having greater inter variety diversity? Most, almost all, tomato varieties are totally inbred. The ONLY exceptions are what is being called landraces here. Tomatoes are natural selfers, and only one fruit can provide enough seeds for an average garden. So every gardener saving only one variety of tomato is effectively only saving one set of genes. But that doesn't explain why worldwide, nearly, there is so little genetic variation. So a little history. Way back, tomatoes were domesticated in the Andes Mountains. Go back to the Andes and you'll find plenty of variation, for the Andes. But not neccessarily variaton useful for other places. Sure some genes for resistance to various diseases and insects and nematodes, etc. Variation in flavor, growth habit, etc. That is where you'll find variation but not always useful in another environment. So about 1,000 years ago, maybe more, someone took a tomato, or a very few tomatoes to Mexico. not much variation shows up there compared to the Andes but a lot compared to the rest of the world. Why? Because the Spanish took a few (or one) variety to Europe. It caught on there eventually, and people selected mutants for smaller, larger, colors, flavors etc. But mostly tomatoes from those in Europe are all but clones of each other, except for those desirable mutants that were selected for. From Europe, tomatoes were taken to Asia and to North America other than Mexico and southwestern USA. So that is how tomatoes became one of the world's most inbred crops. Africa may have gotten different types from Mexico via the slave trade. I don't know. Niger, where I was a tomato breeder back in 1978-81, didn't have tomatoes until WWII. But along the coast, who knows? If you want genetic variation, go to Native Seeds/Search and you might get more variation than all of Seed Savers Exchange, other than those that got to SSE from South America or Latin America or the desert southwest USA. GRIN or Tomato Genetics Coop, would have novel genes from Mexico or S. America. You might think about shopping there.
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Post by walt on Dec 22, 2016 14:34:47 GMT -5
While i only tinker with adaption and landraces on a very small scale i'll add my two cents. I really don't think saving 99% of the unique genetics to be very realistic even if you were to have lots of land and enough plants of each variety. 50% might be more realistic, unless each variety is isolated, but even then there is still genetic drift when plants are inbred. The second thing i will add is that with the pea breeding and evaluating sometimes i have gotten one year vastly different climatically from the year beefore and the varieties that did excellent the first year do not do well the next and vice versa. If you were to only be evaluating 2 plants for evaluation to find the best before starting the landrace i would recommend evaluating for three years first. About a half century ago, Harlan and Martini published work with barley that showed exactly what you saw with peas. Wow! It is getting more like 3/4 century, but that isn't the point here. I also don't think saving all the genes is a good idea. What you don't want is loss of random genes due to too small populations. But we would like to loose genes for poor growth in given situations, poor flavor, poor keeping quality, etc. Most of those desired genes will have been selected for in several varieties. Some will be in all domestic varieties, like genes for heading, if we are limiting this to cabbage. Then there is the question of bringing in genes for heat tolerance from collards, etc. And then there is the question of whether I should even get involved, as Chinese cabbage does much better for me than does true cabbage. Interesting thread though. It addresses questions that apply to all crops.
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Post by walt on Dec 22, 2016 13:47:42 GMT -5
and should another one of the takeaways from this be: for in-the-ground growing, sweet potatoes should get more space than irish? I was thinking of planting them alongside my driveway bordered by zinnias or something this year, and working out how wide the bed should be. 18+ gallons of soil for a single plant means a pretty wide border. Depends on how deep the roots go. Anyone know how deep sweet potato roots go? Sure, it depends on soil tyoe and soil preperartion. But estimates anyone? Yes, I'm also preparing a new sweet potatao bed.
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Post by walt on Dec 22, 2016 13:40:23 GMT -5
It's very nice today in Kansas. Sun's out. It is supposed to get above freezing. But as my grandfather used to say, "As the days begin to lengthen, the storms begin to strengthen." Feb. is usually our worst month.
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Post by walt on Dec 22, 2016 13:34:28 GMT -5
I lived 10 years in a 8 ft. x 20ft trailor house. All my electricity was from 2 solar pannels, about 48 watts each, nearly 100 watts in full sun. That was about 1 kilowatthour per day in the summer. Winters not so much. So the winter solstice was a big deal to me. Still is. Always will be. So a blessed solstice to all. I used to have a Wiccan friend. That's how she said it.
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Post by walt on Dec 21, 2016 16:37:34 GMT -5
Please note that I have edited my post from yesterday. I wrote the wrong name for a book. Principles of Plant Breeding is the one I highly recamend.
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Post by walt on Dec 21, 2016 16:28:03 GMT -5
OK, I miss understood the original question. I thought that you were talking about starting a landrace by growing 2 each of 100 varieties. To keep 99% of the genes in an OP variety for one generation would require 50 plants during that one generation. I calculated that to keep 99% the genes for 2 generations for 2 generations requires 200 plants per generation I'm not even going to try to calculate for 3 generations. So where does it stop? To maintain a population for any length of time, you have to select. At somewhere under 50 plants mutation pressure, the constant creation of new mutations, can maintain genetic diversity. Most new mutations are undesirable, but with constant, even mild, selection, will keep a variety going, maintaining its identity as a given variety. Thus, varieties are never stagnant. They are either being selected, or they are declining. The selection can be entirely by nature at one extreme, or entirely by humans at the other extreme. Selection is best with both human and natural selection going on. When the big gene banks were being started, there was much discussion about how it isn't possible to keep a variety constant. But then everyone shut up because the big gene banks, while never perfect, are better than nothing. Even that is still debated sometimes. Ancient Greek philosophers said "You can't stick your hand in the same river twice" The idea was that by the time you stick your hand in again, the river has changed. Quantum physicists say "You can't even stick your hand in the same river once." Breeders need to accept this, and accept it as possibly a good thing, since we have to deal with it anyway. So, with an upper limit of 50 per plaants generation, one might save seeds from 10 pants per year, if you need that much seed. And freeze it while you grow another bunch and save seeds from another 5 plants the next year, etc. In 10 years you have seeds in the freezer from 50 selected plants. Mix all that seed and start again. Problem here is that it is 10 years per generation. So maybe go with fewer total plants, therefore fewer years per generation. There is no perfect solution here. There are solutions one can live with
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Post by walt on Dec 21, 2016 14:56:25 GMT -5
In my graduate research with winter barley, I would put barley seeds on moist filter paper in a petri dish, let it set a few days untiil it looked like they were about to sprout, then put them in a refridgarater for 30 days. After 30 ddays, I took them out and planted them in1-gallon pots. They grew and flowered quickly. Withhout this treatment, they took much longer, many never blooming at all without cold treatment.
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