Seed Bulking

[gaiagrower]

I'm trying to learn what methods are used to "bulk seeds" in breeding projects. Internet searches have not produced anything.

Does anyone know how this is done?

Thanks!

[grunt]

gaia: www.farmingsolutions.org/successtories/stories.asp?id=95, and www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?seq_no_115=166941 give an indirect idea of what to do. Just wait a bit, and Alan will likely chime in with very good info for you, as this is what he is doing with a lot of his crossings.
It's good to see there are more new faces getting into this now. I'm a little long in the tooth to make much headway in breeding, but grungy and I have a fledgling seed bank with about 600 tomato varieties already in storage. We may not be around long enough to do the breeding, but we can help save the results and the varied germ plasm from disappearing.
Cheers
Found another good one after I posted, so I added it here
www.landfood.ubc.ca/courses/agro/424/lectures/8-Seeds of Survival Debriefing with Appendix.pdf
Cheers again

[robertb]

Do you have any blight resistant toms? I've lost mine to blight every year for the last three years. I'm giving up on outdoor growing for the time being, but I'd be interested in breeding resistant early toms for outdoor growing if I could just find a variety with the resistance!

[orflo]

Try some wild ones, or at least some with wild genes:
solanum humboldtii
solanum spontaneum
matt's wild cherry
tomatito de jalapa (in my experience the most resistant)
solanum hirsutum
broad ripple yellow current
solanum parvibaccatum
and some others, if you want bigger sized tomatoes , go for the humboldtii (3-4 cms)
the others are generally speaking smaller. Don't use any manure or fertiliser, I tried out humboldtii with and without fertiliser this year, and the ones with fertiliser became sick, even though I only used about a spoonful each plant....

[bunkie]

dan, that last link isn't working? is there another? thanks!

[gaiagrower]

Thanks everyone for your replies. First, "dan's" last link should be:
"http://www.landfood.ubc.ca/courses/agro/424/lectures/8-Seeds%20of%20Survival%20Debriefing%20with%20Appendix.pdf"

Note the '%20' instead of the spaces that was posted earlier. I had to enclose that link in quotes - this editor removed the '%20's which it probably did the very first time. Aha!

I really liked the Seeds of Survival file! A whole breeding course, short version, right there.

I asked an expert. His response is: "Bulking seed requires growing up collected seed in a farm/garden/ plot and then allowing those plants to intercross and then the resulting seed is harvested. This is technically an F1 sample of the collection."

Says it pretty clearly, I think. Though, if the seeds were bulked using, say, the F4 population, by his reasoning, wouldn't the resulting crop then be the F5 population?

Anyway, his answer helps me a lot. Hope it helps others.
BTW: I'm 59, and just starting with starting with breeding, i.e. reading about it. I think I've still got time for 2 or 3 or more 10-year breeding projects, how 'bout you?

[Alan]

Well it depends on what method of breeding your working with but the premise is pretty much right.

If you are doing a mass cross then bulking would just mean selecting those plants that represent what your looking for together for future growout in the F2 of the mass cross.

If for example you are doing "row sellection" where you save seed from multiple fruits but keep them seperate and then grow them in individual rows, bulking would mean at the end of the year you select your specimens out of each row and bulk the selections out of each row or bulk all the accessions from each row together.

You can even go way beyond that, let me know what your working with and what your selection criteria are and I'll give you a bit of a better idea.

[grunt]

Bunkie: The pdf is a 6+ Mb download. The online html version is at 74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:uvN-aJJ95vQJ:www.landfood.ubc.ca/courses/agro/424/lectures/8-Seeds%2520of%2520Survival%2520Debriefing%2520with%2520Appendix.pdf+8-Seeds+of+Survival+Debriefing+with+Appendix.pdf
It just doen't have the photos in it.

[grunt]

bunkie: I uploaded my copy of the pdf to my google account. You can view the pdf or download it from here tinyurl.com/mlhnnj

[bunkie]

thanks dan! will go there...

Aug 11, 2009 19:10:55 GMT -5 gaiagrower said:

............BTW: I'm 59, and just starting with starting with breeding, i.e. reading about it. I think I've still got time for 2 or 3 or more 10-year breeding projects, how 'bout you?

you're not alone gaiagrower! i just turned 60 and am starting this breeding thing too! ;D

[grungy]

Actually there are a lot of us in that age group that are more or less beginners. And we can all thank guys like Alan for getting us started into it seriously.