Kay Lancaster wrote:

On Fri, 17 Nov 2006 01:07:55 -0600, sherwindu wrote:
You missed the point. The resultant apple will have the genetic makeup of some

recessed genes, and will not resemble the original apple, no matter what. You

Please, please... pick up a good basic genetics book and do some reading.
"Recessed genes"? You think they're on holiday break?

I think you are the one that needs the textbooks. Read on ...

Better yet, a
good basic plant breeding text sounds like it needs to be on your list.

I am not pretending to be a biologist or a plant geneticist. However, I do know a
solid layman's idea of how apple trees propagate. The term recessive gene is not
my invention but is part of the laws of Mendelian inheritance created by Gregor
Mendel.
If you have a problem with that, take it up with him.



There are some really interesting issues in apple genetics, including
ploidy levels, polygenic inheritance and a tendency to "bud sport".



In
fact, it's fairly common

It's so common that I have never seen one in my 20 years of growing apples,
visiting numerous orchards, or just talking to fellow apple growers.


to find an oddball branch on a grafted tree,

What you call oddball I have only observed in very small variations in size, color,
and taste of the apple. I am not familiar with any radically different apples
appearing
suddenly on just one branch.


clearly tissue grown from the graft, but with different fruit characters
from most of the rest of the tree. Chimerism and mosaicism

U. of Minnesota describes mosaicism as: 'Mosaic variegated aneuploidy (MVA) is a rare
recessive condition'.
Evidently they think that it's ok to use the term recessive.

have played
an important part in the development of a lot of tree fruit cultivars.

Genetic diversity isn't something to be scorned...

We are not talking here about genetic engineering! This is simply about the natural
genetic effects of planting an apple seed. This kid planting an apple seed is not
going to take it to his laboratory to do high tech genetic engineering!

Sherwin D.



Kay