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Question about hybrid vegetables
(lemmy.ca)
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this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2024
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If you cross AA males with BB females, you get all AB babies ("hybrids").
But if you cross AB males with AB females, you get a mix of AA, AB, AB, and BB babies.
If you want to reliably produce lots of AB babies every year, you need a reserve population of true AA and BB breeding stock.
And that's with just one gene. A specific breed or landrace can have lots of distinct genes.
This! The breeder basically keeps two parental lines that they use to make the seeds. Usually they need to do the crossing pollination by hand somehow and make sure that no foreign pollen fertilize the females. There is a great and accessible book about breeding by Carol Deppe if you're interested in breeding plants in generally https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/breed-your-own-vegetable-varieties/
I've also always been wondering about this and other questions before reading that book.
Thank you for the reply. I’ll check that out
Free copy here: https://archive.org/details/breed-your-own-vegetable-varieties/page/n3/mode/1up
Thank you!