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Post by oxbowfarm on Oct 26, 2011 4:19:03 GMT -5
Holly,
I've had a lot of problems getting in touch with Hudson Valley Seed Library myself, but it seems to be a structural problem with their email vs them actually blowing you off. The best way is to leave a comment with your email addy on the web page and get a reply from them that way. But even when replying to their emails I get a lot of bouncebacks and stuff. When you CAN get through with them they seem to be a couple of nice guys who seem to be working towards some good goals, I am planning to do some seed grow-outs for them next year.
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Post by jonnyyuma on Oct 26, 2011 9:27:27 GMT -5
Hey Joseph
I don't think CMS is as prevalent as it appears. I know it is in certain crops for sure, but there are still all the worlds seed banks where it can not exist. Wether we agree or not, I'm glad to see you have taken a stance, it is your stand to take. Let me know if you would like some fertile broccoli F1 broccoli seed. I am swimming in it.
Thanks
Jonny
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Oct 26, 2011 10:04:30 GMT -5
I don't have any reason to believe that seeds I get from a seed bank are substantially free of CMS. I don't have any reason to believe that heirlooms are substantially free of CMS. They might be a good place to start looking for healthy cytoplasm, but in the end, I'm left with examining each seed producing plant when it's flowering to see if it's producing viable pollen. So far, the CMS systems that I have observed in my garden have all resulted in no pollen production. If I encounter a system that produces non-viable pollen then it'd be more work to eliminate.
How do you get gobs of F1 broccoli seed without CMS? Emasculating? By use of self-incompatibility? How does that work in practice? How highly inbred does the mother line have to be to make use of the self-incompatibility system?
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Post by jonnyyuma on Oct 26, 2011 11:01:45 GMT -5
Hello again,
I am left with this question now. Why do you believe that CMS is a severe issue in seed banks? If they are maintaining their collection properly and introducing new genetics properly it shouldn't exist. I think pedigree breeding is a good place to start prior to starting your mass selection work. This would help avoid introgressing things you want to avoid.
Basically in Broccoli it is "easier" to avoid CMS because it came from Raddish and is a fairly recent development in hybrid seed. If you got into the not so distant past you can avoid CMS. SI was the standard way of producing hybrid seed and many of the commercially available F1 are still SI. This is changing rapidly as newer/"better" F1 varieties are released by the seed companies. CMS doesn't just appear, it has to be put in there and maintained in order to work. If you get CMS into your foundation seed for your hybrid productions, you are in trouble because it will lower your seed yields of your female line and increase your costs. Removing CMS is fairly easy in brassica, you have a line that restores fertility, if you remove that from the equation you can get rid of CMS through rouging. It's not genic so it wont' segregate in following generations. Once you get rid of that CMS female, and dont' allow it to be pollinated by the restoring line, it is gone.
You don't need to be too inbred to use SI. Infact I would suggest you maintain some form of "diversity" in your inbreds in brassica lines as they can suffer from severe inbreeding depression. There are some pools that don't seem to be as susceptible to inbreeding depression as others. The issue with SI is that there are many genes and each gene has it's counter part that "restores" fertility (the gene for gene theory). So you would need your SI systems to be uniform or you could get drift in your population.
Thanks
Jonny
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Oct 26, 2011 11:14:36 GMT -5
Why do you believe that CMS is a severe issue in seed banks? If they are maintaining their collection properly and introducing new genetics properly it shouldn't exist. What I meant to say, is that I'm a natural born skeptic: I don't trust seed banks... I don't have any reason to believe that they are acquiring or maintaining their collections properly. I don't have any reason to believe that so called heirloom seeds really are heirlooms. I don't have any reason to believe that they aren't mixing seeds up during processing. I can't even maintain my own collections properly, why would I trust someone that's doing it for minimum wage? |
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Post by spacecase0 on Oct 26, 2011 13:03:46 GMT -5
So, those folks from Richmond...the woman who runs the show, Rebecca Newburn told me that when the receive something rare, they have folks that are trained and conserve things. that is very good to know, I guess I just did not get a good look at all of it then. |
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Post by jonnyyuma on Oct 26, 2011 19:03:41 GMT -5
I can't even maintain my own collections properly, why would I trust someone that's doing it for minimum wage? That's a pretty funny description, I got a good laugh. |
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Post by steev on Oct 26, 2011 20:55:40 GMT -5
I've too often gotten a six-pak of starts which turn out not to be as labelled; I think it results from someone who doesn't/can't read the labels being handed a bunch to stick in the sixers and just going until they run out of labels.
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Post by 12540dumont on Oct 26, 2011 22:15:25 GMT -5
Joseph, If I come to your farm will you pay me minimum wage? God that would be an increase of 75% over this year. I can read! Really!
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Oct 26, 2011 22:34:50 GMT -5
Joseph, If I come to your farm will you pay me minimum wage? God that would be an increase of 75% over this year. I can read! Really! Hey, that's the same that I make: About $2 per hour before expenses. Really! |
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Post by MikeH on Dec 22, 2011 10:20:22 GMT -5
OK, I saw this thread the first time around but didn't see it at all. Joseph's Joseph's Landrace Seeds 2012 thread with its link to his seed list and its link to his essay on cytoplasmic male sterility brought me back here to search for the subject which caused me to read the thread in detail this time. I'm not a breeder or trying to grow landraces yet so I'll not comment on that but rather on how this affects a simple seed saver. I don't grow F1 for all the widely known reasons, foremost among which for me is the desire to have plants that come true-ish to the parents. It would seem that the only certain way of avoiding sterility is to buy organic seeds or perhaps those that carry a guarantee of x% germination. Have I misunderstood? If so, I'd appreciate being set straight. Regards, Mike |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Dec 22, 2011 11:54:31 GMT -5
I don't grow F1 for all the widely known reasons, foremost among which for me is the desire to have plants that come true-ish to the parents. It would seem that the only certain way of avoiding sterility is to buy organic seeds or perhaps those that carry a guarantee of x% germination. Organic Certification deals mostly with paperwork regarding the garden that the seeds were grown in, and very little if anything with the genetics of the seeds. Much of the "Certified Organic" seed on the market for crops like carrots, beets, onions, brocolli, potatoes, etc are F1 hybrids and contain the cytoplasmic male sterility trait. Even open pollinated crops, and heirloom crops can carry the trait, and The Corporation is not disclosing that information to the public. [If I was in a bad mood today, I would claim that it is an evil conspiracy.] The only way to be sure that your crops are not male sterile is to learn what healthy pollen looks like for each species, examine each blossoming plant, and weed out any sterile plants. |
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Dec 22, 2011 13:26:39 GMT -5
I've noticed discrepancies from different seed sources too. I've been browsing the red sunflowers and i think i found one variety (i think velvet queen?) that was listed as a pollenless variety (presumably an F1 hybrid) from one company, and another company that never mentioned 'pollenless' and was claiming that it produces "an abundance of seed". Could the one place unknowingly be selling an offshoot of the original that has begun to stabilize into an open pollinated variety, or do you think this is just a case of misinformation?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Dec 22, 2011 17:36:41 GMT -5
Based on photos at the different seed catalogs. I'm speculating
that there are many different genomes being sold under the
name of "Velvet Queen", there is the maroon version, and the
orange version, and the double petaled orange version, and etc,
and etc, and etc...
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Post by nuts on Dec 22, 2011 18:05:11 GMT -5
Maybe you can rid of both cms and si by isolating every plant in a cage.
But then,you get in trouble because this involves costs,(although the losses are significantly lower at 2$/hour then at 100$/hour ;D ;D)
My simple vision on landraces is this
If you want to go for a landrace you want an adequate proportion of random crosspollinations,for insect pollinated crops,you need also a healthy insectpopulation and a good compability between insects and flower.this assures a degree of "blending" of the introduced genes.
In many varieties this compability is lost to some degree in the breeding process and crosspollination often has become an exception.
If the crosses have an selective advantage over selfpollination you can expect the ability for crosspollination to improve over the generations,
Your initial population needs to have a initial degree of cross higher than zero.
The selection must favor crosses to some degree
You also need an adequate populationsize to avoid "drift"(=loss of genes).You can increase the virtual population size by moving seeds between populations,hence the necessety for seedswaps.
I certainly don't want cms or other anomaly of the reproductive system,there is a real risk that they will affect the effficiency off crosspollination.
The si genes is somewhat more complicated,they may be naturally be present in some species or varieties,to favour cross pollination over self pollination.
But I'd be rather suspicious if they have been manipulated in the process of creating hybrids
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