Genotype, phenotype, and genetic drift.

I have heard in the past that if you keep selecting 3 years in a row from the new plants you can get a variety more acclimated to your climate, however this is not a guarantee so you have to do this with lots of cuttings to actually get a better sport of the variety your trying to improve.
 
TorontoJoe said:
His “not so bright” copy reminds me of my VdB’s and RdB’s. All mine have been duds…. Yet varieties know know for reliability.
Click to expand...
Interesting... I've got a few of those, too, from my VDB. I propagated several trees from it over the past two years, and some were excellent, same vigor and productivity, while some were not so good. I attributed that to the way I grew them; I definitely did not give them the same rigorous care I gave to my first VDB, but some were up-potted sooner and some later, and there was a difference in how they were started. I am not 100% sure what the cause is. Despite some claims that a tree propagated from a cutting will be identical to the mother tree, I see a lot of variances between my mother trees and offsprings and even between the offsprings that were treated similarly. My RDBs - mother trees and children - have been quite good, though there were variances. For example, one of my daughter trees (air layer) produced fewer and larger fruit last summer, while the other had more fruit but of smaller size. The mother tree was somewhere in between.
 
Figgin' A said:
I am not 100% sure what the cause is. Despite some claims that a tree propagated from a cutting will be identical to the mother tree,
Click to expand...

Genetically unless it’s an actual mutation, like a sport. It is dna identical. The weird part is why do the cuttings from the same tree express a different phenotype.
 
Figgin' A said:
Interesting... I've got a few of those, too, from my VDB. I propagated several trees from it over the past two years, and some were excellent, same vigor and productivity, while some were not so good. I attributed that to the way I grew them; I definitely did not give them the same rigorous care I gave to my first VDB, but some were up-potted sooner and some later, and there was a difference in how they were started. I am not 100% sure what the cause is. Despite some claims that a tree propagated from a cutting will be identical to the mother tree, I see a lot of variances between my mother trees and offsprings and even between the offsprings that were treated similarly. My RDBs - mother trees and children - have been quite good, though there were variances. For example, one of my daughter trees (air layer) produced fewer and larger fruit last summer, while the other had more fruit but of smaller size. The mother tree was somewhere in between.
Click to expand...

With all the cuttings moving around, this is something I really want to better understand. I'm wondering how commercial growers who clone to propagate account for this. I'm not sure what other sectors do it but I'm understand it's how most cannabis grown

Also, I'm thinking of pretty much every fruit tree one might buy. It's always the desired cultivar on a rootstock. So do commercial growers have these problems with oranges, apples, lemons and olives?
 
TorontoJoe said:
With all the cuttings moving around, this is something I really want to better understand. I'm wondering how commercial growers who clone to propagate account for this. I'm not sure what other sectors do it but I'm understand it's how most cannabis grown

Also, I'm thinking of pretty much every fruit tree one might buy. It's always the desired cultivar on a rootstock. So do commercial growers have these problems with oranges, apples, lemons and olives?
Click to expand...
Maybe with cuttings it has something to do with hormone distribution? Maybe a cutting that was taken with the tip intact has more of that apical bud dominance hormone that makes it grow like a beast…
Maybe a cutting taken from lower down on a branch has more of whatever hormone makes it want to push out figs, and it ends up being more precocious…

Sure, hormones will even out and be produced at more normalized rates after the cutting turns into a plant, but maybe the concentration within the cutting makes a difference in the stem cells that produce the new plant, and a new balance is achieved in the daughter plant compared to another daughter plant that started life with a different balance?
 
TorontoJoe said:
With all the cuttings moving around, this is something I really want to better understand. I'm wondering how commercial growers who clone to propagate account for this. I'm not sure what other sectors do it but I'm understand it's how most cannabis grown

Also, I'm thinking of pretty much every fruit tree one might buy. It's always the desired cultivar on a rootstock. So do commercial growers have these problems with oranges, apples, lemons and olives?
Click to expand...

I have seen where commercial orchards want to change varieties for lack of production or in pursuit of the new cultivar releases. They just top work the trees. Top’em and regraft.
I don’t think in big orchards they tree by tree obsess like a collector does. If they see one that’s poor just rework it. They look at production by acres not trees. Now when they see one that stands out better I’m sure they look at why.
There is a YouTube Chanel named “all bout grafting” he is a commercial orchard grafter. He reworks whole orchards all the time. Or poorly producing sections.
 
When you watch commercial grafters cut scionwood. They are pretty ruthless. We obsess over every possible propagatable piece, they cut off so much and only use the stuff that will work best. But when you have pallets of material to work with it’s a different game I guess.
 
The ability to find and improve phenotypes isn’t in the individual collector. It’s the power of the group. If we each find just a few better ones then redistribute the good ones cull the weak ones, as a collective we have to ability to radically improve huge numbers of varieties that one collector would spend a lifetime doing.
 
SpiritFarmVa said:
The ability to find and improve phenotypes isn’t in the individual collector. It’s the power of the group. If we each find just a few better ones then redistribute the good ones cull the weak ones, as a collective we have to ability to radically improve huge numbers of varieties that one collector would spend a lifetime doing.
Click to expand...
I like the way you think
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top