To all you pollinators out the tree.
What is the diffrence, if any, on which cultivar donates the polen or the ovary.
In crossing A&B, does it matter ? Is A pollen to B any different than B pollen to A.
Mike
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Do you mean in terms of resultant product of the breeding? IOW…is the offspring any different when A pollinates B versus when B pollinates A…is that the question?
Yes. In trying to develop a new variety. I have seen descriptions that seem go out of their way to say which was by pollinated by which.
Since we are harvesting the seeds and not the fruit it would seems that it should not matter.
Mike
That’s a damn good question. I’m in agreement with you, it seems it should not matter. It’s such an incredibly complex thing though, that I’m not sure.
I too, have seen similar descriptions and never really thought about it until you posed the question.
I have emailed Susan Brown at Cornell twice before and she never replied, otherwise I’d send an email asking her.
Ok Mike, so your probably going to think I’m BSing you here, but I just looked up Susan Brown online and there was her phone number. So, I thought why not? I called it and she answered. I told her who I was, and that a question had come up on growingfruit.org and wondered if she could maybe answer it and she says “sure”.
So, the answer she gave when asked if the cross direction matters “absolutely…yes”. I asked if there was anywhere online I could go to read and better understand this. She pointed me towards New York Fruit Quarterly…which evidently had some related discussion in the last issue…I guess. I haven’t looked at it yet. She took my email and said she would send something.
She said if you think about Eve…Eve passed on certain traits as the original progenitor of the human race that only she could have possessed. I’m still trying to wrap my head around that, but it immediately brought to my mind Mitochondrial DNA that I believe is only passed along the female line.
She also mentioned the chlorotic leaf issue with Honeycrisp…she said they do find that issue is much worse when the Honeycrisp is the female recipient (I think I have that right, but I could have it backwards).
I was very surprised she answered the call, and was even further surprised how engaging and helpful she was. Though I know it sounds a little silly, I was kinda nervous talking to her…she, and others like her are sorta rock stars to me…hehehe.
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Wow that is really something. I know that I don’t have to ask but when you get the info from her please upload.
Thanx
Mike
yeah…you know I will. She really was very nice. She told me she might forget, and not to be afraid to remind her. It would be awesome if we could get her on Skype or something for like 30 min. or something one day for a question / answer type thing. I suspect her time is pretty valuable though and I kept that in mind and tried to not tie her up. Our conversation was like 2-3 minutes.