There are a lot of issues raised here.
IMO, the old strains were all crossbred by humans over thousands of years to produce whatever results they desired from the plant. They are not original wild genetics, I'm pretty sure.
I think VanXant is saying that was fine because of the way they bred the plants back then. They had the luxury of growing hundreds if not thousands of plants for seeds at a time, and thus they could pick from a LARGER POPULATION, the best traits to carry on to the next generation.
Today the same thing is being done, but from a much smaller population because we have so many restrictions on growing these days. And therefore the gene pool available to any one breeder is more restricted and the overall genetic quality may be declining, esp. for the elite varieties.
Plus the fact that so many of these breeder plants are now grown indoors vs. outdoors is also lessening their overall genetic strength because of the lack of stress. This can be likened to being overly protective of children. If you never let them fend for themselves and make their own decisions, they never learn how and are therefore at a disadvantage when thrown out into the real world. Can we apply that to seed breeding?
VanXant, have you ever seen a large seed operation (like the Dutch have) in action? I would assume that they are using many hundreds of plants in their genetic experiments and selecting the best out of those for breeding.
And yes, I was just waiting for the Nazi shoe to drop (it does in nearly 10% of online threads I think). That is a moral issue that deserves another thread (when discussing human genetics). However, we cannot deny that most of our agricultural products have been manipulated by humans over the course of millennia.
So the bottom line is that the best breeders are going to choose their next generations from hundreds of potential candidates, not just a few. That fact has never changed over the course of history.
IMO, the old strains were all crossbred by humans over thousands of years to produce whatever results they desired from the plant. They are not original wild genetics, I'm pretty sure.
I think VanXant is saying that was fine because of the way they bred the plants back then. They had the luxury of growing hundreds if not thousands of plants for seeds at a time, and thus they could pick from a LARGER POPULATION, the best traits to carry on to the next generation.
Today the same thing is being done, but from a much smaller population because we have so many restrictions on growing these days. And therefore the gene pool available to any one breeder is more restricted and the overall genetic quality may be declining, esp. for the elite varieties.
Plus the fact that so many of these breeder plants are now grown indoors vs. outdoors is also lessening their overall genetic strength because of the lack of stress. This can be likened to being overly protective of children. If you never let them fend for themselves and make their own decisions, they never learn how and are therefore at a disadvantage when thrown out into the real world. Can we apply that to seed breeding?
VanXant, have you ever seen a large seed operation (like the Dutch have) in action? I would assume that they are using many hundreds of plants in their genetic experiments and selecting the best out of those for breeding.
And yes, I was just waiting for the Nazi shoe to drop (it does in nearly 10% of online threads I think). That is a moral issue that deserves another thread (when discussing human genetics). However, we cannot deny that most of our agricultural products have been manipulated by humans over the course of millennia.
So the bottom line is that the best breeders are going to choose their next generations from hundreds of potential candidates, not just a few. That fact has never changed over the course of history.
