Seed sorting for 2024

Not always accidental as the grower cannot save their own seed and have to go back to the breeder for fresh seed.
It's not just space though; to breed your own varieties from seed takes time which people don't have with families and jobs etc.
I have a feeling that the Inca did not start every year with fresh potato seed, but would've saved tubers from year to year and still the Andes is a centre of potato diversity.

 

I agree, but that does rely on whoever is doing the breeding to account for a gardener and their tastes, when almost all breeding today is for industrial agriculture (to the extent that they spend dozens of generations producing a perfectly uniform crop, which is totally wasted effort for us). Up until the last 80 or so years almost all crop breeding was done by farmers and gardeners, with whatever they could get their hands on.
The very distinction between open pollinated ("infinitely" inbred) and hybrid (the first generation cross of 2 infinitely inbred cultivars) is new too, since human agriculture for almost all history didnt use inbreeding techniques at all, beyond accidental "introductory" events, eg. a sailor bringing back only a handful of tomato seeds from the new world. Terms like "true from seed" have appeared which dont have any consistent biological meaning as a result. Most people believe it means what homozygous means, but that only applies to a specific individual and its mating partner (which might be itself). Fruits that undergo apomoxis however are quite rare. I believe blackberries do it.

For a modern farmer, having a diverse crop is very awkward indeed. But for gardeners, not so much, since our lives dont depend each year on the crop, and we are picking by hand or trowel. In the long term it ends up more productive since you can select what works in your conditions. Thats the theory at least!

 

A few years back I think you might have been right, but these days lots of seeds in the catalogues are most only grown by home gardeners, the farmers wouldn't be growing what we do.
I'm not a scientist and my dictionary is a bit limited

I just grow what I like and think you can over think things as my old boss used to say, just get on with it.

 

Surely "open pollinated" seed are as diverse as you are going to get. To keep a consistent quality you need to consistently remove/not use plants that do not conform otherwise your "variety" drifts, see threads on Gardeners Delight on this forum and comment on relatively recent RHS trial.
Seed companies supplying home gardeners either grow the seed for themselves or contract that out, often to the continent; better summers ensure better seed quality.

Sorbus species are known for apomixis.

 

Having now looked up apomixis, I think some citrus pips are like this.

Now off to find out what homozygous means.

 

Yes ive heard some citruses do that as well, like trifoliate orange, but none of the largely cultivated ones iirc. They use trifoliate as a rootstock because its the cold hardiest!

This is because theyre not actually "infinitely" inbred, and many useful genes are recessive and often hidden away, so at the slightest suggestion can decide to not show up in a cross between two different but same named seeds.
Diversity exists in two forms: Individually (heterozygous...ity?ness?) and group diversity, different plants having just different genes in the same population. The bigger the chromosome and the more copies it has (polyploidy) the more genes are contained within to "store".

Over very long periods of time you also get mutations, which have given us amazing genes like the multiflora one in recent human history. Some breeding programs intentionally expose plants to mutagens, radiation, chemicals, virii, etc. just to see if something cool pops up. Usually its caused by one bit of dna going bye bye: multiflora has some hormone i cant remember turn off, causing it to flower endlessly until it gets bored or something.

Almost all western tomatoes from what ive read trace back to a handful of crossings from the new world into europe, so apart from mutations, almost every heirloom in has its genes from those original crossing.

In order to get new genes, they have to go back to the andes! often they go straight for relatives of Solanum Lycopersicum, like S. Habrochiates. I saw someone claim SunGolds wierd fruity taste came from Habro, and many disease resistances come from it and others.
I also read the first tomatoes that got to europe were yellow!

There are some small scale yankees on Opensourceplantbreeding that are trying to domesticate wild tomato species. Its really interesting to read their nerdy posts. Most of my info is from them.

Sorry for the big arrogant info dump. I must like the sound of my own keyboard

 

This is a bit of tricky one as in some species with large chromosomes there can be a lot of non-functional DNA or simply duplicate genes.
Also with polyploidy as n increases you can get sterility.
Some plants are genetically unstable for example dahlias. "Most dahlias are octoploids with eight sets of chromosomes, resulting in far greater variability in the offspring. Dahlias also contain many transposons, “jumping genes” that move from place to place in the DNA sequence, which adds to their diversity."
There is also somatoclonal variation where during cloning a mutation occurs that is not deleterious and this becomes dominant in that clone. Among apples some varieties are described as a sport of (for example) Cox and this is what happened. It has also been observed in olive trees among others.
I came across it in a comment on ferns and micropropagation of these resulting in quite a number of variants arising from the same culture.

 

My seed spreadsheet now has fruit colour columns. #saddo

 

Goodness @eatenbyweasels how many varieties have you tried?

 

It's not the ones I've tried that are the problem. It's the ones I'm intending to try!

 

Well you've grown a lot more than me! So go on...if you were on a desert island, and only one variety turned up in a coconut shell, which would you want it to be?

 

None of them. Were I on a desert island I'd be growing half-kilo black Brandywines. However, given what I can and have grown here, then probably Dwarf Mary's Cherry. Ask me another day and I might as easily say Bloody Butcher, Cherry Roma, or Haley's Purple Comet/Sweet Mystery.

 

Do the big beefy boys like brandywine really hold up to cherry toms? Ive not had the privilege of munching on a steak tom that didnt taste of nada yet in my life
I figured all the energy into making a big fat fruit took away the flavours... but then again, watermelons are pretty big too.

Heres my (final???) seed haul for 2024.
3 vars of alpine strawberry, 9 toms, 4 peppers, 3 cuces, 5 odd nightshades, 2 pumpkins and a bunch of cold weather greens. sowed the strawberries already. I really dont have room for this all. Our garden will just be a maze of different size pots. All my relatives will have their gardens full too if I have my way

 

I'd love to have the climate to find out for myself if the big'uns can match up to the cherries.

Five odd nightshades. Do tell.

 

Solanum "Melanocerasum", perhaps retroflexum syn. or part of nigrum complex. makes black berries some say are tasty, others say bland. This one doesnt sound as interesting but was a freebie.

Solanum Villosum, sold as "subspecies Aureum", aka hairy nightshade. native to mediteranian. makes red to yellow berries that are supposed to be yummy.
Both are eaten in africa... as a spinach substitute They boil it but as far as I know solanine isnt destroyed by cooking. Maybe its water soluble like oxalate. Maybe ill try a leaf.

The rest are physalis:
Viscosa, a zone 8 ground cherry. I wanted a perennial rhizomatous one to see if it might survive the winter but couldnt find a source.

Peruviana, yum.

And a "Pineapple" tomatillo, Ixocarpa. I was tempted to buy some other tomatillos and mix them but ive got no room.

They just sounded interesting and ive always loved that odd taste physalis has.