Thanks for going into detail Jose. Although please note, I didn’t say obtaining a variety from seed. See:
So I am actually in favour of variety, by which I mean the opposite of a ‘stable variety’ - I mean I’m fine with the offspring all being different.
Yes, exactly.
Well that’s what I’m asking, in terms of being interested in the actual results if anyone has tried growing any of these interspecial hybrids from seed.
This again is why I am interested in hearing about direct (or indirect) experience with growing any of these tasty hybrids from seed. For example, if someone had a group of trees from one such delicious interspecial hybrid such that the seeds resulted from cross pollination within that group, how would the results be in practice? I understand that it might be that only a proportion of the trees might give nice fruit - if someone has tried I’d be interested in what proportion that might be. Also I would expect that after a number of generation one ought to be able to make a relatively reliably delicious population, such that each tree would still be different, but they’d all or almost all be delicious. We have this in self incompatible vegetable populations, for example. Just takes some generations to get there if the initial population isn’t reliably delicious.
I’ll give an example. I have eaten non-stabliised (I forget if it’s F2 or F3) hybrid fruit of Solanum lycopersicum (the domestic tomato) and Solanum galapagense, a wild tomato species which has no history of being eaten by humans even in its native habitat. The resulting fruit, which I grew this year, was delicious. Many of the cherry tomatoes are crosses between S. lycopersicum and S. pimpinelliifolium, and you can get nice fruit from this even in variable F2, so far as I understand. For breeding a commercial variety, the corporations or even smaller businesses will want a stable variety (therefore generally growing out to F8) and have specific phenotypes they want, such as fruit that lasts long when ripe so can be transported long distances and stored for a long time before being eaten, due to commercial requirements, and in fact often this results in relatively tasteless fruit that is suited specifically to the modern capitalist model. But we don’t all have those criteria - some of us prefer good taste, and are fine with variability.
Here’s a nice video explaining in the context of wheat, why it can be so very advantageous for a. crop to not be homogenous, why genetic variation is so very useful. I know this goes against the standard model of modern farming, but I think not only is this generally a more healthy way, but in particular in the current context of catastrophic rapid climate change:
Also, I get that for commercial production, it makes sense to want a stable variety, because of customers. I would guess that having 10 or 100 trees all the same means that you can supply consistent product at suitable scale. And if each tree had good but different fruit, that could be an issue. However, at the family or community level, that would need not be an issue.
I do not know much about fruit trees and I am sure you know a huge amount. But if I may be so bold as to make an assumption, I will guess that that is not the complete picture - that longevity may also depend on the genetics of the tree itself, even if grown from seed with no root stock. After all, people have been growing fruit trees from seed for many thousands of years all around the planet.
Another example - many people grow tomatoes using grafting, to gain disease resistance from the root stock. But many people have also created tomato varieties that instead gain their disease resistance from interspecial crosses, such as the Ph-2, Ph-3, and Ph-5 genes for late blight resistance from Solanum pimpinellifolium. Similarly, you can get late blight resistance and cold tolerance from crossing with Solanum habrochaites, or deep roots for tolerance of dry conditions from S. chilense, salt tolerance from S. galapagense, and so on. So, I would imagine that interspecial fruit tree crosses could be a useful avenue for acquiring traits that would otherwise be sought from grafting, in which case potentially one could make populations which could be propagated from seed and be well performing, whilst having the additional benefit of being adaptive.
Now I know that this is a harder path for fruit trees due to the time it takes for them to bear fruit. But it still seems a worthy endeavour, hence my asking if people have experience with growing any of these from seed.
Yes, that’s a big issue for potatoes also. And while tissue culture can solve that, I find great value in methods that do not require high levels of expertise or technology. Partly because I expect the climate catastrophe to lead to some extent of societal collapse, and severe global food crisis. So I think local sustainability is important.
Sure. But I see this as 2 different things. I wasn’t talking about adding more diversity. But… suppose someone has 5 varieties they’re propagating from cuttings. You can say they have ‘diversity’ in their orchard because they have 5 types. But the diversity is static, so there will be no evolution. On the other hand, if they have 5 varieties that are all crossing, over time there will be constant shuffling of all of the genepool, so the diversity is dynamic, and the population will be evolving, adapting to the environmental pressures (including the cultivation methods) and to the pressures of the owner of the orchard who will be selecting also based on their own criteria. So, due to the genetic diversity of the population, as the generations continue, the resulting population can become better and better at adapting to the soil, weather and disease conditions, and also genetically shift along with the changing climate. It’s easier to see with annuals like wheat as in that video I shared above, but the same should be true of fruit trees also, right? Just takes a longer-term view/intention.
Ah, I just looked up Malus sieversii, the ancestor of the domesticated apple, and found this which relates to what I was saying about using crossing for cold tolerance and disease resistance, and also supports what I was saying about the benefits of genetic variation within a crossing population:
These and other Malus species have been used in some recent breeding programmes to develop apples suitable for growing in harsh climates unsuitable for M. domestica, mainly for increased cold tolerance.[17] A study in 2020 has discovered various gene inserts involved in dormancy and cold resistance features, such as heat shock proteins, in wild apples.[15] In addition, desirable traits such as late flowering, early fruit maturity, short juvenility and stooling capability were studied by many breeding programs.[18]
Malus sieversii has recently been cultivated by the United States Agricultural Research Service, in hopes of finding genetic information of value in the breeding of the modern apple plant. Some, but not all, of the resulting trees show unusual disease resistance. The variation in their response to disease on an individual basis is, itself, a sign of how much more genetically diverse they are than their domesticated descendants. For instance, wild apples were found to have multiple blue mold resistant genes, specifically against Penicillium expansum.[19] The USDA Plant Genetic Resources Unit (PGRU) also conducted phenotypic analysis on M. sieversii seedlings, and has identified various pathogenic resistance including apple scab, fire blight, and cedar apple rust.[20] A research in 2001 found various insect resistances within M. sieversii seedlings, and has identified instances for further research on its resistance for apple maggots and apple leaf curling midges.[13] Effects of heat on M. sieversii were also studied in hot and arid regions, and they were found to be considerably drought tolerant and sunburn resistant.[13][21]
Well, yes that one genotype problem is what I mean by non-sexual propagation, but regarding from seed, could it have been that some varieties faired better than others? But yes there was a big bottleneck for potatoes, and tomatoes also, but that was exacerbated by the self compatibility of domesticated tomatoes and their very low rate of outcrossing (made even more extreme by the rather modern heirloom attitude of ‘purity’)attitude of ‘purity’) and the widespread use of few clonal populations of potatoes. Though now there’s so much diversity available from Andean potatoes, the world of TPS (true potato seed) is fascinating, and that is certainly the route I would take if wanting to make an adaptable potato population. I’m planning to start that next year.
Yes, sure, very valuable. Also would be great if they can be kept going on the land itself! For example there are so very many rice landraces in India, but in danger of being lost due to the multinational corporations pushing their seeds onto farmers there, giving them varieties that are worse nutritionally, dependent on horrific agricultural methods (fertilisers, pesticides etc.) and often more susceptible to extremes in climate, and often can’t be saved and planted the next year, pushing farmers into debt and causing huge suicide rates.
There is a small but increasing trend for farmers and even gardeners to grow older varieties, and also grow genetically diverse interbreeding crops - ‘evolutionary plant breeding’ or ‘modern landrace’ methods, for example. And one doesn’t need to be professional to do this. I think this is all quite natural for agricultural people to do, even if illiterate.
But by the sounds of it, nobody here has tried growing any of these interspecial fruit trees from seed… though if someone has and hasn’t spoken up yet, or has stories to tell about others who have, and how the fruits were (especially if grown from seeds resulting from a population of already delicious interspecial hybrid trees), I would be most interested to hear about it.