Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 20:10:12 -0700 From: ricell@juno.com To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg432$foo@default> Subject: Re: hybrids
On Fri, 12 Feb 1999 "William M. Gorum, Jr." <wgorum@softdisk.com> writes:
>Is the propagation of hybrids standard practice in horticulture? I
spend
>the majority of my free time caring for the several breeding pairs of
>parrots that I have in my care, and in the world of aviculture, serious
>bird breeders will often harshly condemn the breeding of hybrids because
>we have such a limited number of bloodlines available in the U.S.
This is a good question - and one that might even spark some interesting
debate in the horticulture world - so I think I'll answer to the list.
While in the CP world, there are definitely some species purists I think
you will find that most people don't passionately object to the idea of
hybridizing.
For myself, I think hybrids can be interesting and fun. However I think
its important to keep carefull records of your hybrids and since I live
in Colorado the risk of any hybrid CP that I create getting established
in the wild is pretty much zero.
I think a lot of the concerns about animal hybridization revolve around:
1. Concerns of hybrids escaping into the wild,
2. The ethics of creating a sentient creature that does not know what
species it is.
3. Going through the effort of raising some hybrid creature when captive
propagation is percieved as an attempt to save genetic material from
extinction.
For complaint 1, plant hybrids are not rare in nature and while plants
can "escape", they tend to be easier to keep captive than animals. It
also seems that most of the hybrids are created in non native areas - eg
Nepenthes hybrids seem to mostly be from Europe, Japan and North America.
For complaint 2, only a few of us think our plants are sentient (you know
who you are!). While I have a hard time composting perfectly good
plants, I have no ethical concerns about planting several hundred seed,
saving a few and culling the rest.
Complaint 3 might be a valid one for us. There are certainly those that
think hybrids are a waste of good greenhouse space. In this age of
extensive tissue culturing though, I don't particularly feel like I'm
doing much to preserve rare genetic material since frequently I'm just
growing the exact same clone as hundreds of other folks.
My two cents
Rich Ellis, Boulder, CO "ricell@juno.com"
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Vines/8564/
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