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Pinedale, WY

This is just a question and I am not that smart, so I am sure there is a good answer. But in an earlier post I was told by someone wise, that the genetic make-up and the passing of genes in a male flower was the same on every male flower on that plant. Thus any male flower from that plant that you use to self would be the same. If the genetic makeup of each seed is the same, then wouldn't the pollen from those flowers be the same as another plant grown from the same seed? If so then sibbing and selfing would be the same.
But if this is true then someone could recreate a 1068 and it should be just as good, but obviously this doesn't work, so I am missing something somewhere. Please fill me in.

2/26/2008 1:00:19 AM

Syracuse, NY

remakes of top seeds can have better or worse results than the original cross because every seed and i believe every pollen grain has a SLIGHTLY different genetic makeup.
even pumpkins on the SAME PLANT can be different colors and different shapes. if everything WAS the same genetically, then you and i could each grow the same exact
seed stock, oh, lucky us with our matching 1068s, lol,
side-by-side and not hiding anything and we would have
different-looking fruits no matter what. SIMILAR, YES, and HAEVY, no doubt;
another example is in every family photo album;
same father and mother, we hope, but the kids will all look SLIGHTLY different, except in cases of identical twins; but i'll bet each of them SNORES a little differently!
there has to be something different in every genetic coupling---this is in part how evolution comes about,
genetic mutations and such---good night---eric g

2/26/2008 3:07:55 AM

Syracuse, NY

correction:
"if everything WAS the same genetically, then you and i could each grow the same exact
seed stock, oh, lucky us with our matching 1068s, lol,
side-by-side and not hiding anything and we would have
***IDENTICAL***-looking fruits no matter what."

but, that would not happen,
per my previous reasoning or whatever

and, MY plant is over the septic tank--lol
also>>>>>HEAVY, not HAEVY

2/26/2008 3:14:24 AM

Ohio

I'm with Eric on this as well, I believe(even though it might not be true) that one male flower from the same plant that was used as a pollinator has a better chance of growing the same consistent pumpkin then it would from using 5 males from the same plant as pollinator from the same plant. I believe that every male flower, even though they are on the same plant, will be almost the same but carry just a slightly different genetic trait.

Like I said, this might not be true but this is what I believe. Hopefully I can find out more about this because the last two years I have only been using one male flower as a pollinator.

2/26/2008 4:59:58 AM

western PA

without getting to big wordy.

every pollen grain within a whole plant should be the same. Just as every egg ( potential seed within the potential pumpkin below the young female) should be the same.

1 grain of pollen joins with one egg. there can up to 1000 seeds, lets say, within a pumpkin.

when 1 pollen grain joins with one egg a new whole strand of DNA is made. that DNA is a combination of genes and alleles (dominate, ressesive, and codominate).

this proccess happens for as many seeds as are in the pumpkin. so every resulting seed within a pumpkin varies to some degree (albeit small)

2/26/2008 10:13:51 AM

western PA

so if you were to make a remake of the 1068.

you would get another 845 (which would be slightly different than the original 845 used to make the original 1068).
you would then need another 898 (which would be slightly different than the original 845 used to make the original 1068).

then with both being sightly differing to begin with, when them combined again in the polination prosses, the resulting cross would be more dissimilar to the original 1068 then disired.

but you never know, might even be better.

2/26/2008 10:19:04 AM

western PA

dang. the 898 part should read

you would then need another 898 (which would be slightly different than the original 898 used to make the original 1068).

2/26/2008 10:20:18 AM

Pocatello (cliffwarren@yahoo.com)

Vader,

I'm not a genetics expert myself, but...

You're right in that every seed in the fruit varies to some degree.

On the other hand I've always believed that every pollen grain (analogous to sperm) and every unpollinated seed varies in it's genetic makeup. In sexual reproduction, the way I understand it is that seed cells and pollen cells are made from formerly whole cells (containing all genes) which were then split. These cells then contain only half their original genes. This splitting process is usually results in every pre-seed or pollen grain being different.

Consider human reproduction, we know for example that the male cell controls the ultimate sex (male or female) of the resulting child. Approximately half of those little swimmers are holding a gene for females and half for males. Whichever one makes the first contact controls the destiny of that new life. Not just in the sex of the child, but in all things. Half the genes come from the mother and half from the father, worked out in such a way that there are many, many, MANY possible outcomes.

2/26/2008 10:57:40 AM

western PA

you are right Cliff.

the original meiosis to form each individual pollen and egg can contribute to the varience between seeds within a pumpkin. I think that the recombination durring the pollination furthers that original difference much more.
so both play a factor.
this is why each pumpkin off of the a given mother varies a little from one another.

2/26/2008 11:30:46 AM

western PA

each pollen gain would very slightly differ from its buddies dispite whether it came from a differnt male flower or not.

2/26/2008 11:32:34 AM

western PA

For some reason I was thinking mitosis when I should have been thinking meiosis when I first talked about pollen and egg production.
Its been a few years since college, lol.

2/26/2008 11:47:06 AM

Colorado

p.p. original question was is sib the same as self.It seems sibing would introduce more variability than selfing.Since were inbreeding to try to lock in desirablre traits(on paper) selfing would have less variable seeds than sibbing.Both would be less variable(seed wise) than a unrelated cross.

2/26/2008 12:13:22 PM

Pinedale, WY

I am starting to see this whole genetics thing a little better. I was a straight "A" student, other than spanish and biology which I got "D's" in. I knew sibbing and selfing were different, but I read some of the other comments on other threads, and it brought up this logical point, but there is enough results to prove it wrong, I was trying to figure out why. It sounds like nothing is exactly the same, and that is the difference.

2/26/2008 12:58:38 PM

Owensboro, Ky.

PP, I always heard that variety is the "spice of life", if every one was the same, how boring it would be!!! LOL Peace, Wayne
PS...and talk about variety, you sure got it goin on in Colorado!!!! LOL cojoe, if selfing promotes less variety in results, how come sibbing is gaining in popularity???? just curious??

2/26/2008 4:31:51 PM

does the fact that each seed comes from a grain of pollen connecting with an egg mean that increasing the amount of pollen put onto the flower can increase the odds of having more seeds in the pumpkin?

2/26/2008 6:18:48 PM

Pumpkintown, SC

Here's how I like explaining it: Let say we have a 1068.
Sibbing will produce seeds more like seeds straight out of the 1068 itself.
Selfing will produce seeds more like the specific 1068 seed it was grown from.
On a slightly differing note, Brooks, keep pollinating with that single male bloom. Though not proven, I am a firm believer that logically, one can believe this will cut down(who knows to what degree) on the genetic variability of each fruit's seeds. BF

2/26/2008 8:15:03 PM

Syracuse, NY

okay, way too big-wordy, y'all!
ha ha just kidding----very interesting reading.
my PO (personal opinion) is yes, 'stoo?, the more pollen
used to pollinate a feem (female) the better,
and i had thought once or twice to tell everyone to use
as many as 5 males FROM THE SAME POLLINATING PLANT to pollinate with, as a few pounds COULD be added to the weight simply because of the fact that there are more mature seeds in the fruit. EG

2/28/2008 1:41:31 AM

Pocatello (cliffwarren@yahoo.com)

More pollen is fine, excess would just be wasted, but if you don't need it for anything else...

You're limited by the number of "eggs" in the female. If the little ball that forms on the vine has 500 eggs, the most seeds you can get is 500. You can't get any more, no matter how much pollen you put in. But you want to get as many of them as possible.

If you cull a female before pollination, cut it open and you can see all of the female eggs there. If you were REALLY patient, you count them.

2/28/2008 12:17:07 PM

Pocatello (cliffwarren@yahoo.com)

Then glue it back together and pollinate it.... (j/k) lol

2/28/2008 12:19:14 PM

Eugene,OR

One way to explain it is to compare it to a litter of puppies. Lets say you have 12 puppies in a litter. Each came from a different egg in the mother which was fertilized by a different sperm from the father (unless we are talking identical twins, and that is a different process of events). The puppies will all be similar, but each will be a little bit different. If however there were more than one male dog fertilizing the eggs (like in an open pollination) you could get a wide variety of offspring. They still will be puppies, but some of them won't look like each other.

2/28/2008 12:20:49 PM

ok, so more pollen gives the opportunity to add to the seed count and possibly the weight of the pumpkin to a point of diminishing returns determined by the number of eggs but the answer to Pastor's original question is that using more than one male flower from the same plant to pollinate increases the chances of variation in the plants and pumpkins that result from the seeds that are in that fruit.
Good iinfo, thanks.

2/28/2008 6:53:37 PM

western PA

i dont know....
it would be logical to think of it as one male would keep the variability to a minimal.
but when you consider that each grain of pollen varies from one another to the same degree, despite which male it comes from, i really dont think it matters if you use one male or 13 males. they will all vary to the same degree from one another.

Vineman, nice comparison with the puppies.

2/28/2008 7:59:35 PM

Minnesota(dw447@fastmail.fm)

Vader that seems logical....unless there is some type of mutation on the part of the plant that one of the males was taken from.....such as I've heard occurs with tomato plants on occasion, where one branch will produce a different colored fruit...It occurs on apple trees sometime...resulting in a "sport". I've heard people state that they've had a plant produce different colored pumpkins on the same plant....I'm wondering if this is from a mutation of some sort?

2/28/2008 9:17:48 PM

Owensboro, Ky.

How many grains of pollen in a single male flower? What % of those grains make it thru the pollination process? Max seeds in a pkn? How many males needed to insure max seed production? I understand there have to be other variables, ie Don's 1600#er+ w/ no seeds, but, how would we know if 1,5,or 13 males is best? Peace, Wayne

2/29/2008 12:15:17 AM

western PA

good point Doug. i had one vine on a 582 Hester that was bright yellow, when the rest of the vines were green.

Wayne, even thou it would matter if you used 1 or 13, you only need 1. 1 male flower would have more than enough pollen.

2/29/2008 5:34:00 AM