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ExtremeVegetables.com

My "opinion" .
So what it doesn't grow true to variety the next year. If your growing for size , your selecting fruit for size and nothing else. Seeds from the largest fruit on each plant have a higher probability to produce fruit with that specific trait.
I've been watching pumpkin growers now for the past six years+, and although the breeding efforts have been somewhat random and elementary the current weights and results of those efforts speak for themselves. These growers have been completely going against just about everything I have ever read regarding professional and conventional breeding of vegetable and plant varietties, by simply continually selecting fruit according to desired traits. wether that be for weight, orange, green, weight to charts, or even shape.

Please enlighten me if I am incorrect but wasn't the Atlantic Giant Variety originally an F1 which was a cross of the Hubbard Squash and an older variety which name slips my mind at the moment?

As an example, here's how I view the evolution of Giant pumpkins grown for desired traits in very basic terms:

Starting with Howard Dill. God Bless Him .
Howard creates a new variety from two older landraces. he grows many plants from those seeds, gives or sells that variety to 100 growers and one or more of those growers produce a pumpkin larger than that previously produced. The next season 100 growers grow seed from the larger pumpkins grown the previous year and out of those growers one or more produced a pumpkin greater than the previous year. And so on and so forth. This selective breeding effort has brought the weights of Giant Pumpkins from the four hundred pound range to the current 1689 pound World Record. All created from Mr. Dills original F1 seed line.

If i am correct in that the Atlantic Giant variety was once an F1 variety, then why would this not aslo work for breeding other F1 vegetable varieties for various traits ???

1/19/2009 8:44:25 AM

ExtremeVegetables.com

The only reason I know of not to, would be copyright infringement, but I wouldn't plan on ever distributing the results of those breeding efforts other than for use in my own personal garden, of course .

1/19/2009 8:44:32 AM

Eastern Washington State

Those are interesting questions. I have worked professionally with plant breeders for several years and have a few thoughts.
Simple selective breeding is an ancient and very powerful technique for modifying other organisms. It requires no real knowledge of genetics to implement. All you need is the following: 1. a genetically based trait you are interested in. 2. available genetic variation that controls your desired trait. 3. a means to control which individual’s offspring are carried forward to the next generation. and 4. time. Just like you said, the genetic potential to grow 1600 lb fruit was simply the result of several generations of artificial selection for fruit size, even given the somewhat random nature as to how it’s been carried out. That’s so awesome! I mean the original wild Cucurbita maxima fruit was probably the size of a fist. Likewise, the 2 lb little yappy dogs out there are descended from 100 lb wolves. Both due to humans choosing which puppy/plant was better and will be used as breeders.

1/19/2009 3:01:14 PM

Eastern Washington State

Modern plant breeding is in essence an extension on that theme. However instead of waiting for natural genetic variation to occur (through mutation, or accidental outcrossing to wild relatives), they cross two distinct individuals that might have the traits desired in the new variety (your F1). This F1 individual then has the complete mix of both parents’ genes. The breeder then moves the trait from one parent into the other variety by backcrossing, or they create a whole new mix by repeated self-pollination. Individuals with the desired traits are carried forward to the next generation. The inbreeding continues until the breeder is confident that the new variety is ‘fixed’ for the traits of interest (ie it is genetically uniform enough to breed true). The distinction between a ‘landrace’ and a ‘breed/variety’ can be a bit fuzzy. Modern true-breeding varieties are usually more inbred than landraces and are more uniform in appearance. Landraces usually have a few traits that are fixed (usually primarily adaptation to local growing conditions), and have a large variation in others. AG’s seem to me to be more of a landrace of Cucurbita maxima that has been selected for fruit size, but that is a totally arguable point.

1/19/2009 3:01:26 PM

Eastern Washington State

As for your point on new varieties, I think you can probably do it. We are way outside my area of expertise here, but I think the plant breeders’s code of ethics basically states that you are allowed to use a protected variety once in a cross to generate a new variety. You are not allowed to distribute either seed from the variety itself, F1 hybrid material using the variety as a parent, or use the protected variety as a recurrent parent (cross to it more than once). However plants from the F2 generation and beyond are yours. Of course nowdays people are protecting traits themselves if they can prove it’s genetically based and can describe it well enough. There may also sometimes be prohibitions as to even using the variety in that first cross I mentioned. Anyone with expertise in this area care to chime in?

1/19/2009 3:02:30 PM

Bemidji Minnesota

If we are talking tomato, then one gardener could grow quite a few of them too. I think it would be not too much different from how F1s are bred to eventually become and heirloop.

In theory, using the right F1, or a capable F1, as a start, over 10 generations, with say 20 ore more plants per generation, we could have a 10 pound mater.

When you think that a pumpkin can be over 3/4s of a ton already, and how much less space tomato plants take, it sounds do-able.

2/1/2009 4:49:33 PM