897tgigvib
Garden Master
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Normally when saving seeds one saves seeds from a good number of your favorite and or best plants. Doing it this good way helps to make sure you have good diversity and good genetics for your growing situation. Doing it this general way for years will show genetic improvement.
There is another also good way to select, and it works very fast, especially with plants that normally self pollinate, Tomatoes and Beans for example.
When you save seeds from one plant that is outstanding in some way, and keep them separate from your other selected seeds for only a few generations, continually selecting each year for that outstanding trait, and continually selecting from the one plant that shows it, one is very likely to have that variety in a new version. After a minimum of 2 generations with the trait selected for showing up in all seeds planted, one does indeed have the new version of the variety. If the trait is not only outstanding, but noticeably outstanding it is possible to be different enough for its own name. When done this way, I choose a name that shows respect to its ancestor variety.
Hidatsa Shield Figure Pole Dry Bean, a wonderfully productive, vigorous, and resistant variety was sometimes producing beans with a medium brown shield instead of the beautifully swirled and marked shield. I separated those up a few years ago, and planted them separate from the normal ones. I also separated the plants a bit more, and as the vines grew, kept them as separate as I could. About half the plants in that group made only those dark shielded Beans, something like half the plants made some of its beans like that, some more, some fewer. So I saved separately the seeds of those that made all dark shields. Last year when I planted those they all made all dark shields. This year, actually this morning, I looked at them in their coffee can, and carefully sorted out the 6 most beautiful of them to plant. I planted those 6 this morning near the young berry vines. They will outgrow the young brambles easily.
This was not quite pure power selection.
I am a year behind these Hidatsas doing a similar thing with several other Bean varieties, and just beginning doing this with several others also.
The process is actually slower to stabilize an outstanding trait that is Dominant than it is to stabilize a trait that is recessive. That may surprise some folks at first, but if you remember those little Gregor Mendel Pea experiments, with a Dominant gene, a trait can show the dominant thing even if the recessive gene is in the plant, and so shows the recessive trait from some of the plant's seeds in the next generation. But, a recessive trait, if it shows, does not carry the dominant trait, and all the offspring will have the recessive trait.
Whew! It's actually simple, but a person can do it better if they know ahead of time if their trait they are selecting for is dominant or recessive. Guessing can be done if some basic things are known. mmm, ya might be right more often anyhow.
Wild traits tend to be dominant
Bigger or taller plants tend to be dominant
Disease or insect resisting traits tend to be dominant
more or exotic colorations tend to be recessive
Fruits or pods bigger than the wild ancestor tend to be recessive
But remember, the dominant traits, if there are some with the recessive traits in with them, are more difficult to sort out and stabilize.
One does not need to do any cross pollinating to create a new variety, but ya can! Doing that, then selecting this way is the quickest way to a new variety.
A couple paragraphs in a forum like this doesn't tell the whole story! There's much more, but it can be done using only the info I gave here.
Basic plant breeding can easily be a 2 semester college course, but there is enough here for anyone who reads this to give it a try.
Even if ya give it up or don't do something right, all is not lost. Ya still have good seeds for next year, or the makins' of a good batch of chile!
There is another also good way to select, and it works very fast, especially with plants that normally self pollinate, Tomatoes and Beans for example.
When you save seeds from one plant that is outstanding in some way, and keep them separate from your other selected seeds for only a few generations, continually selecting each year for that outstanding trait, and continually selecting from the one plant that shows it, one is very likely to have that variety in a new version. After a minimum of 2 generations with the trait selected for showing up in all seeds planted, one does indeed have the new version of the variety. If the trait is not only outstanding, but noticeably outstanding it is possible to be different enough for its own name. When done this way, I choose a name that shows respect to its ancestor variety.
Hidatsa Shield Figure Pole Dry Bean, a wonderfully productive, vigorous, and resistant variety was sometimes producing beans with a medium brown shield instead of the beautifully swirled and marked shield. I separated those up a few years ago, and planted them separate from the normal ones. I also separated the plants a bit more, and as the vines grew, kept them as separate as I could. About half the plants in that group made only those dark shielded Beans, something like half the plants made some of its beans like that, some more, some fewer. So I saved separately the seeds of those that made all dark shields. Last year when I planted those they all made all dark shields. This year, actually this morning, I looked at them in their coffee can, and carefully sorted out the 6 most beautiful of them to plant. I planted those 6 this morning near the young berry vines. They will outgrow the young brambles easily.
This was not quite pure power selection.
I am a year behind these Hidatsas doing a similar thing with several other Bean varieties, and just beginning doing this with several others also.
The process is actually slower to stabilize an outstanding trait that is Dominant than it is to stabilize a trait that is recessive. That may surprise some folks at first, but if you remember those little Gregor Mendel Pea experiments, with a Dominant gene, a trait can show the dominant thing even if the recessive gene is in the plant, and so shows the recessive trait from some of the plant's seeds in the next generation. But, a recessive trait, if it shows, does not carry the dominant trait, and all the offspring will have the recessive trait.
Whew! It's actually simple, but a person can do it better if they know ahead of time if their trait they are selecting for is dominant or recessive. Guessing can be done if some basic things are known. mmm, ya might be right more often anyhow.
Wild traits tend to be dominant
Bigger or taller plants tend to be dominant
Disease or insect resisting traits tend to be dominant
more or exotic colorations tend to be recessive
Fruits or pods bigger than the wild ancestor tend to be recessive
But remember, the dominant traits, if there are some with the recessive traits in with them, are more difficult to sort out and stabilize.
One does not need to do any cross pollinating to create a new variety, but ya can! Doing that, then selecting this way is the quickest way to a new variety.
A couple paragraphs in a forum like this doesn't tell the whole story! There's much more, but it can be done using only the info I gave here.
Basic plant breeding can easily be a 2 semester college course, but there is enough here for anyone who reads this to give it a try.
Even if ya give it up or don't do something right, all is not lost. Ya still have good seeds for next year, or the makins' of a good batch of chile!
