Hi Claude,

Not a dumb question.

To understand the difference you have to understand what is going on with
the selfing. Genetically plants have pairs of chromosomes. In the sex
process, eggs and pollen are made with one of the chromosomes from the pair.
The two join creating a plant with a pair of chromosomes (one from the egg
and one from the pollen). If the plant we wish to self has the following
chromosome pair Xx, the resulting offspring will have Xx, XX, and xx for
chromosome pairs. The probability that a selfing will have the same
chromosome pair as the mother is .5. A Phalaenopsis has 38 pairs of
chromosomes. Thus the probability that a selfing will have the exact same
genetic make up as the mom is .5 to the 38 power which is something like 1
in 274 billion.


Pat


"Claude" wrote in message
...
hello everyone!

Sorry, might be a dumb question but...

what is the difference between selfing and cloning?

My understanding is that selfing is pollinating the plant with it`s
pollen,
that way, you get seeds and can go flasking.
Cloning is taking cells from a part of the plant ang grow it in flask!

Am I right? If so, what are the difference?

Thanks

Claude