When crossbreeding, is it important which plant is the female or male of the cross (other than that one way may not take)? Or should a female quinoa and male huazontle produce the same result as a female huazontle and male quinoa, assuming they both fertilize successfully?
When crossing a perennial and an annual, how hard is it to get a now perennial version of the annual? I didn’t realize this could be done at all. Are the traits determining annual-ness relatively unimportant to the rest of the plants health and production? Or are you likely to get some kind of biennial mix that then must be selected further?
Perennialness is a spectrum like most things. Among the salvias some species will hang onto one spot for a decade, while others start weakening after two seasons. Annual salvias like chia are a minority in the genus (and even then could probably be persuaded to hold on for another season with a bit of TLC). Similar spectra exist that turn shrubs into trees or vines. I wont bother predicting whether any hybrid salvias will have more annual or perennial tendencies- I will just observe whatever chance offers me and decide if it is worth developing further.
I emasculated the quinoa this season since I have a few more strains of it over huauzontle, but it is worth trying the cross in both directions in the future. The seed parent contributes mitochondrial and chloroplast DNA, as well as most (all?) of the plant microbiome that isnt absorbed from the soil, so the results of crossing either way can end up fairly different.
Interesting. For some reason I was thinking these things are mostly fixed traits.
What does the other parent (pollen parent?) contribute to the mixture? Fascinating stuff. Is it fair to say that the female parent is ‘more important’ then? Or that a cross may have more of the female characteristics?
The pollen parent contributes half of the nuclear genome (which is the bulk of inherited genes) but the seed parent contributes organelle and microbiome genomes, which can be substantial (we still don't really know how much genetic diversity is held in all of that since many minor/rare endosymbiont species are hard to sample and characterise).
I planted sword beans this year- first time I’ve ever heard of them. From
What I’ve read they are complicated to eat. I ate a lot of them young green pods as I googled that this was okay. Do you eat them green or just eat the dried bean?
Funnily I havent moved onto eating sword beans yet. From my research, tender pods can be eaten as a vegetable but boiling in a change of water is recommended. The seeds need to be soaked then boiled in multiple changes of water, though kibbling the seeds (breaking them into smaller pieces to increase surface area) apparently speeds up this process. Jackbean (C. ensiformis) is commonly fermented into tempeh in Indonesia, so I will be trying this for myself at some point as well. For reference, remember that undercooked kidney beans can be fatal as well to give you a sense of perspective.
When crossbreeding, is it important which plant is the female or male of the cross (other than that one way may not take)? Or should a female quinoa and male huazontle produce the same result as a female huazontle and male quinoa, assuming they both fertilize successfully?
When crossing a perennial and an annual, how hard is it to get a now perennial version of the annual? I didn’t realize this could be done at all. Are the traits determining annual-ness relatively unimportant to the rest of the plants health and production? Or are you likely to get some kind of biennial mix that then must be selected further?
Perennialness is a spectrum like most things. Among the salvias some species will hang onto one spot for a decade, while others start weakening after two seasons. Annual salvias like chia are a minority in the genus (and even then could probably be persuaded to hold on for another season with a bit of TLC). Similar spectra exist that turn shrubs into trees or vines. I wont bother predicting whether any hybrid salvias will have more annual or perennial tendencies- I will just observe whatever chance offers me and decide if it is worth developing further.
I emasculated the quinoa this season since I have a few more strains of it over huauzontle, but it is worth trying the cross in both directions in the future. The seed parent contributes mitochondrial and chloroplast DNA, as well as most (all?) of the plant microbiome that isnt absorbed from the soil, so the results of crossing either way can end up fairly different.
Interesting. For some reason I was thinking these things are mostly fixed traits.
What does the other parent (pollen parent?) contribute to the mixture? Fascinating stuff. Is it fair to say that the female parent is ‘more important’ then? Or that a cross may have more of the female characteristics?
The pollen parent contributes half of the nuclear genome (which is the bulk of inherited genes) but the seed parent contributes organelle and microbiome genomes, which can be substantial (we still don't really know how much genetic diversity is held in all of that since many minor/rare endosymbiont species are hard to sample and characterise).
I see. Really interesting stuff. Sorry if these are basic google worthy questions! I appreciate you taking the time to educate me on this.
Not at all- if you think of a question then other readers probably do as well. I enjoy replying to the best of my ability.
I planted sword beans this year- first time I’ve ever heard of them. From
What I’ve read they are complicated to eat. I ate a lot of them young green pods as I googled that this was okay. Do you eat them green or just eat the dried bean?
Funnily I havent moved onto eating sword beans yet. From my research, tender pods can be eaten as a vegetable but boiling in a change of water is recommended. The seeds need to be soaked then boiled in multiple changes of water, though kibbling the seeds (breaking them into smaller pieces to increase surface area) apparently speeds up this process. Jackbean (C. ensiformis) is commonly fermented into tempeh in Indonesia, so I will be trying this for myself at some point as well. For reference, remember that undercooked kidney beans can be fatal as well to give you a sense of perspective.