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Ca

What should you avoid when looking at the genetics of a seed, or planning a cross? Okay, I know that certain seeds are "proven", and it should make you feel warm and fuzzy to find them in the genetic background of seeds you're interested in growing (723 bobier, 898 Knauss, 846 Calai, etc., etc. ad nauseum). But I can easily find loads of pumpkins with great pedigrees and few or no notable progeny. In fact, almost all the pumpkins grown now, regardless of size, have impressive backgrounds. So, my questions are: 1) are there proven "duds", or does nobody keep records of that? If, for example, Joker 1499 '03 was planted by 100 top growers, and produced nothing over 200 pounds, would there be a record of that dudness, or only a notable void in the database? 2)Are there combinations of seeds, or backgrounds, that don't work well together? For example, if Red666 02 and blue777 02, tend to produce small ugly pumpkins if both their genes are in a seed, even though they do well separately -- is there a way of finding this out if you don't belong to AGGC? Hope these questions make sense.
Richard

11/18/2005 9:30:25 PM

Eugene,OR

Some seed stocks tend to have problems. When these problems become the rule, rather than the exception, that is when they usually achieve un-official "dud" status. Flat vining, splitting, not setting fruit, small offspring, and so on.

11/18/2005 9:37:13 PM

Syracuse, NY

i cannot answer specifically your question, but what i think is sometimes a new seed gets planted a lot the following year because it IS a new seed and looks good on paper. then, if everyone including top growers' fruit are only in the 700-800 pounds range, then that COULD be "it" for that seed, like a "cold case" where they found no body or some such junk. but, years later, somebody takes a chance on that seed again and BOOOOOOMMM! new world record.
simply because, by chance, THAT grower had just the right soil, sun and expertise to make it happen.
or his name was Earl and he just crossed something off his list, lol. there is usually a big gap between the high weight of a seed's progeny and the next weight down,
on the order of 200-300 pounds. if there's not such a big gap, growers go nuts looking for THAT seed! eric g

11/19/2005 2:32:24 AM

Pocatello (cliffwarren@yahoo.com)

I think that a lot of promising seed stocks just don't get
planted. There aren't enough of us to plant them all.

There have been a few notable duds (those with problems as
mentioned above). I tried the 922 Emmons once... not to pick
on any seed, but I just wanted to see for myself. Just as it
did with others, the fruit grew quickly and then "melted" into
a pile of mush.

Really, that seed is a "peculiar" genetic and probably
should be studied in depth, if we had any way to actually
do that.

11/20/2005 10:58:10 PM