Anyone have any idea why the original owner (whose name I forget) doesn't
want to clone the dang thing? He'd make a mint, no?

K Barrett

"Pat Brennan" wrote in message
...

"Ray" wrote in message
. and I left what I wanted..

What we have to keep in mind is that in order to get a "superior" plant,
it is likely that a bunch
of individual traits must come together.

Yea, it is the total package that makes a plant great and it sure is hard
thinking of a great plant as a bunch of bell curves. I do find it
interesting that the mean of any of these distributions does not have to
equal the value of the trait in the selfed plant. I have seen the
average
vigor decrease in many (not all) different self crosses.

In the genetic distribution I mentioned, each of the
individual traits are more-or-less distributed in a bell-shaped curve,
meaning that there are lots
and lots of similar curves.

This distribution is a good way to describe measures on some of the traits
of the selfings population, but it often does not fit. If a trait is
caused
by a single gene and the mother has Xx, the selfing trait distribution
will
be a two or three humped distribution. Add more genes to a trait and who
knows what you come up with. I do not think it even has to be continuous.

Another fascinating and often frustrating thing about these curves with
selfs is that traits values are not always independent. "All the really
good blue ones have awful shape." If a plant has XYxy the chances of
getting a selfing with XyXy is dependent on whether X and Y are on the
same
chromosome.

Pat