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Old May 9, 2011   #13
dice
Tomatovillian™
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: PNW
Posts: 4,743
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As far as bee-made chance crosses in not bagged seeds, I have
2 seedlings out of 200 that are definitely wrong (wrong leaf
type in what should be a PL plant, my own saved seeds). I have
2 more where out of 4 seedlings of nominally the same variety
(from a trade), I have 2 that have standard RL leaves, and
2 more that seem to have a "semi-RL" leaf (serrations but on
wider leaves on a shorter seedling).

4 out of 200 seems to me a reasonable percentage for chance
crosses. In those cases, I also have other seedlings with the
correct leaf type for the cultivar, which is what usually happens
with bee-made crosses. When you plant the seeds and every
one comes up with the wrong leaf type, something else has
happened.

Either there was a seed mixup in the history of those seeds
somewhere, or someone at some point saved seeds from
a plant of a different cultivar (or from a chance F1) and marked
it with that name. If the fruits on the plants with the wrong leaf
type vary from one plant to another, someone probably grew
a chance F1, did not realize it was wrong, and saved seeds
from it. If the fruits are all the same on all of the wrong leaf
type plants, someone grew a plant of some other stable
cultivar and simply mis-marked the seeds with a wrong name.

It could have happened last year or 10 years ago.
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Last edited by dice; May 9, 2011 at 09:58 AM. Reason: clarity
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