Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 19:17:21 -0300 From: Rand Nicholson <writserv@nbnet.nb.ca> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg3668$foo@default> Subject: Re: Production of new CP varieties and conservation
Jeff writes:
>A simple way to begin producing new cp clones/varieties/cultivars is
>careful breeding of selected plants. Inbreeding will allow mutations to
>surface that may have been hidden and if desirable tissue culture can be
>used to quickly propagate the individual clone(s).
I am not sure if you mean to use the term "inbreeding" in quite the fashion
that you have. Are you talking about recessive genes expressing themselves
through inbreeding?
If so, these types of expression most often lead to things such as
albinism, single testicles, congenital dysplasia, sterility and other such
abberations which are not lightly tolerated in nature for any length of
time. I would rather save the species and the habitats that are left. I
believe this would be more in focus with the "conservation" part of the
subject header of your post:
"Re: Production of new CP varieties and conservation"
I believe that hybridization is a judgement call and desirability depends
upon perspective. Having said that:
Skeins of "purebred" dog lines have been genetically disfigured by
"inbreeding for **desirable** traits." Other examples of ornamental
breeding gone wrong by "scientific method" abound. This is not to condemn
ligitimate research, but to suggest that we quite likely have started down
a long road without really knowing where we are going. "It ain't as simple
as all that."
Why not look for and to the marvellous plants that are already out there
(in this CP context), try to understand and preserve them, and leave nature
to make the variants, or mutants, for us to find? By most reports, there
are enough of them out there. Surely we are not so bored?
Kind Regards,
Rand
Rand Nicholson
New Brunswick
Maritime Canada, Z 5b
<writserv@nbnet.nb.ca>
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