Quote:
Originally Posted by NarnianGarden
That's exactly what has been keeping me awake, Carolyn 
You and others have repeatedly told me (and of course I believe you) that SunGold does not involve any genetic engineering, but is traditionally bred using several parental lines. Then, how can a single desired gene be segregated and bred into it, without sophisticated lab conditions? |
The variety Rutgers is an excellent example and if you look at Tania's following page where you'll see SIX different Rutgers listed.
http://tatianastomatobase.com/w/inde...rom=R#mw-pages
And if you look at each one you'll see some are F, some FV, some FF and on and on.
No sophisticated lab conditions are needed at all.
Take an OP variety and say you want to introduce tolerance to Verticillium. You cross the variety with another variety, or one of the wild species that has that V gene.
Then you save seeds from that F1 and plant out many F2 plants, then you challenge each with the pathogen itself to assess the tolerances.
Very labor intensive, but that's how it's done.
And in constructing a modern F1 hybrid it's done the same way with two breeding lines and up to four gene inputs in each line for this and that such as high solids, uniform ripening gene, and yes, some disease tolerances as well.
Does that help?
Carolyn