Hybridizers: Questions about hybrids, 1 by Zen_Man

Zen_Man wrote:
Blake,

"If I cross breed my 2 different F1 hybrids, will they be good/not erratic/not unhealthy/legit plants? "

If you think about it, there are some interesting implications to crossing one F1 hybrid with another F1 hybrid. When you take pollen grains from an F1 hybrid, those grains aren't actually F1 pollen. They are F2 recombinations pollen grains. And the egg cells in the female F1 plant aren't that plant either, but recombinations from the heterozygous F1 female.

So we don't know what any of those recombinations would look like if we grew them. The cross between two different F1 plants is a cross between virtual F2 plants that we never see. As a hobbyist zinnia breeder, I frequently cross F1 hybrids that I have created by cross pollinating various specimens from commercial open pollinated strains. When I do that, I am crossing virtual recombined pollen grains with virtual recombined egg cells. Each pollen grain and each egg cell is a separate recombination, so there could be tremendous variety in the pollen grains and tremendous variety in the egg cells.

That is why there is so much suspense in watching new hybrids-of-hybrids zinnias bloom for the first time. Each one is a cross between different never-seen-before "virtual" parents, and the results can be unique new specimens, exhibiting unique new never-seen-before hybrid traits. And those unique specimens can be crossed with each other to create even more unique recombinations of genes.

Of course, many of those unique recombinations will not be to our liking. Many will be weird in many ways that do not seem subjectively "good" to us. But "good" is subjective, and different people have different ideas of what is "good". Sturgeon's law says that, "Ninety percent of everything is crud." (The last word is frequently misquoted as "crap".) Actually, I think of it in that second form.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_Law

I cull my zinnias with Sturgeon's Law in mind. Actually, if I get 5% "good" from a zinnia grow-out, I feel pretty good, because I am going to save seeds from them and discard the 95% and things get better faster that way. I think that Sturgeon's Law will definitely apply to the progeny from a cross between two different F1 plants. But think of it in a "glass is half empty/half full" way. That 10% or even 5% can make it all worthwhile. I discard many, many zinnias at first bloom, but that still leaves me with a lot of very interesting "breeder" zinnias for further experiments.

The attached picture shows another of my interesting hybrid-of-hybrid zinnias that show traits that never appeared in any of its parents or grandparents. There can be a payoff from crossing F1 hybrid plants with other F1 hybrid plants.

ZM