I have a homozygous mutant (MT) arabidopsis plant (i.e. my mutation is confirmed homozygous). I would like to backcross my plant but I was wondering if it mattered which plant I make the male or female? Either way I will either have to emasculate the MT (female) and use wild type (WT) pollen (male) or vise versa and make the WT (female) and cross with MT (male). The the seeds of my next generation will be heterozygous for the mutation, and then I'll screen these for a homozygous mutation after the plants self (arabidopsis is self pollinating). My thought was to make WT female and use MT pollen to do the backcross because I will be able to screen success vs. failure. If somehow the silique fills and I make the MT female, I don't have a way to check if the transgene is still there? Or I would have to do more work with PCR and transgene markers... I haven't found a good paper on this but any help or insight would be greatly appreciated.

I have a gardenia variety that’s has a nice light yellow kinda white variegation and was wondering if I propagate it and the plant is stable have I made a new variety or not. I am asking because there are several larger companies that when the plant variety variegated and became stable they patented the plant and started to sell so I’m wondering if I could do the same. I also added a picture of a boxwood that also has a variegation that I’m wanting to grow/ patent.

I wanna crossbreed marigolds and other flowers but here's the thing—i'm new to this. and I also wanna experiment and maybe make some cool hybrids.

Btw I'm planting these in my apartment, so I mightn't be able to do some types of flowers

(Also I'm talking about hybrids because my friend made marinnias once (Marigold + Zinnia))

Hello Everyone

Just a quick note to let you know the Zero Input Agriculture podcast is now available on all major podcasting distributors.

I will be alternating short episodes where I narrate past substack posts, with long form interviews talking to plant breeders, low input farmers, social networkers and deep thinkers all over the planet.

The first interview has dropped with Brian Reeder, a life long breeder of robust edible daylily which deserve much more attention in permaculture circles.

Sign up as I have months worth of amazing interviews ahead. The next interview will be with David Holmgren about the potential for plant breeding in permaculture.

https://rss.com/podcasts/zeroinputagriculture/1734776/

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/zero-input-agriculture/id1777033551?i=1000676893939

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2ojPaiAYYw2UFVB4vk0YQP?si=d8a1618e31d14e01

I've read a couple mentions of bridge species used in interspecific or intergenus plant breeding but none of them list exact examples of this method at use.

Does anyone here know any real life examples of the bridge technique used for breeding / introgression etc

Dear Reddit Community,

I’m a UX Design student, and I’m working on my bachelor thesis. I'm designing a platform to help breeders track plant traits, and I could really use your help! I’m looking for participants for a Usability Test to make sure the platform is as user-friendly as possible. To participate, you should be involved in the agricultural sector and have knowledge of plant breeding.

Your feedback would be super valuable! If you're interested, feel free to reach out to me via private message. :)

Thank you in advance!

Hypothetical question to get completely rid of that nasty Poncirine aftertaste, thorns, seeds and pulp. Of course one is aiming for bigger, sweeter fruits, but this is optional due to being hybridizable with all kinds of non-hardy citrus. Nontheless, a juicy, seedless, non-bitter selection of Poncirus could be used as a lemon substitute for zone 6 or a gamechanger for better-tasting F1 hybrids.

What is your estimation - how many generations might it take to produce a fruit very low in Poncirine (detection via HPLC)?

I have always been interested in reading news about the development of perennial cereal grains and how they can change the game on growing crops. And I was wondering if there are any members/viewers of the sub who work in this field of plant breeding who would like to (or are legally capable of) sharing what that process is like and perhaps a bit on where they are developmental wise on creating them, any hurdles or genetic limitations your struggling with, tc.

Hey everyone, for years I have worked in the molecular field of plant breeding but always had some DIY projects at home with different plants. Now I would like to make some EMS (or other method) TILLING lines. Any advice on how to do this at home?

Hello everyone 🌼🌼

I just got my bachelor's degree in Agriculture and crop production and im seriously considering following a master and subsequently a career in plant breeding.

However, i am not 100% certain if that's the way to go and am also viewing other masters regarding sustainability in agriculture and climate change. My main issue w a career in plant breeding is the difficulty and possibly the salary (?) although i dont consider myself be very knowledgeable on these topics.

I would appreciate any comments/ help from plant breeders and sustainability experts that could help me make a decision🌼

Tysm

This is what's become of my second wild hybrid project. I am very impressed with the speed of their growth as they are almost comparable in terms of foliage volume to the first hybrid project. I attribute this to their growing medium (composted chicken manure/wood pellets) and I'm hoping to see fruit by spring given their growth speed.

As you can see the largest of these are already producing runners which is usually the sign that the plants have reached maturity. Though their overall crown mass is still very small. I'm intending to separate them out this weekend and continue to grow them indoors for a little while longer before letting them outside to eventually go dormant when winter comes through.

There is a small chance that they may try to flower mid winter and I will do my best to prune off anything that develops during that time (my washington fragaua vesca are known to grow during the warm sunny days of winter and try to push flowers through even when it can't actually produce anything.

I'm curious if anyone has had any success or info about hybrids between Vaccinium parvifolium, Vaccinium membranaceum, and/or Vaccinium deliciosum?

So ive been trying to get into flower breeding due to the fascination and love i have for them and biology.But i struggle to find teachings or tutorials to get started.

Are there books or videos that you can reccomand and how did you get into plant breeding?

I'm very new to the world of plant breeding, but I think I have an idea for an interesting personal hybrid project. I live in California and here we have a really cool wild Prunus species: the hollyleaf cherry (Prunus ilicifolia). On top of being a beautiful evergreen tree with glossy holly-like leaves (the insular ssp. lyonii usually lacks leaf serrations), the fruit, while half seed by volume usually, is very sweet and juicy for a member of the subgenus Padus. I recently started some seeds from a wild individual and was wondering how "worth it" would it be to try cross pollinating with P. domestica or P. persica for increased fruit size and other misc. desirable traits? Since P. ilicifolia doesn't go dormant in colder months and domestic stone fruits obviously do I have some concerns as to if any potential hybrids would be healthy... I've done some digging and found there has been an ancient, natural hybridization event between P. ilicifolia and P. emarginata, the latter of which is both a true cherry (subgenus Cerasus) and deciduous so I think at least hypothetically a hybrid could mature into a productive tree. Should I try to pollenize P. ilicifolia flowers with P. domestica or persica pollen, (and vice versa) or would another domestic Prunus species be better to accomplish this?
The ideal in my mind would be a hardy, fast growing edible ornamental tree with modestly sized fruit for water-wise cultivation, but I'd be happy with just about any interesting result :)
Would appreciate any feedback, been thinking about this way too much lately 😅

Hello plant breeding world.

I am so happy that I found this sub. I don't know why I didn't come across it before.

I am looking for recommendation on a book. Ideally, it should cover the theory of population genetics and quantitative genetics with regards to plant breeding. In addition, it would also explain the theory behind the actual statistical methods of QTL mapping and genomic selection.

I do have a working knowledge of all of these things, I have worked a bit in plant breeding and I have a very good understanding of molecular biology. I also have a working knowledge of how e.g. the 'R/qtl' package is applied and when the vignette guide pdf mentions that genotype probabilities are calculated with a hidden-Markov-Chain model it rings a bell but how it really work remains a mystery to me.

Basically my knowledge is like a foggy street at night, full of potholes. I would like something comprehensive to fill in the potholes and lift the fog.

Edit: I did use the search function and there was one post that basically answers my questions but it is from 4 years ago. If you say the recommendations given there are still valid, that's a good answer to me as well.

Here are some summer photos of some of the landrace gardening projects happening at East Wind Community, an intentional community in the Ozarks of Missouri. We've been saving and selecting seeds for an increasing amount of crops each year to adapt them to our conditions and preferences. Some that we've been working with for the longest include corn, watermelons, muskmelons, moschata winter squash and okra.

I already save a lot of seeds and want to get more into breeding plants instead of planting seeds I've saved so I'm really at the beginning in terms of knowledge. I have garden angelica (A. archangelica) and have saved the seed but I can't find anywhere information about outcrossing rates and risks. Can anyone help me find more information on this topic? A lot of people are telling me it will cross with a poison look alike but I don't think they are right.

What are the most important texts to read for plant breeding? It seems almost all research $$$ goes to things that have potential impact to human biology and therefore it is kind of hard to find the sort of books that, say, Luther Burbank or Vavilov would have read, written, or benefited from.

Also interested in modern-era techniques like crispr as applied to plants as I am probably 20 years out of date on that topic, last time I was up to speed on that angle they were using tiny shotguns with agrobacter-coated shot.