Hi, i was wondering what the negitives of selfing a plant with cs would be?
There are no proven negatives, aside from anecdotal reports of lower seed counts, but that shouldn't matter, since you'll get a ton, either way. I would avoid consuming any part of the sprayed plant, though, since the CS will have penetrated into the inner tissues of the plant. It's perfectly fine for a seed run, though.
HLG, if I may,...…...when you self a plant, U will get a lot less seed , than using pollen you've saved , at optimal time , on a different plant , but the point im trying to establish , is , ...lets say I had 2 Northern lights, , u flip 1 earlier than the other , so u can spray it , 4 weeks later u flip the other , so as your pollen & flower are both ready together at the optimal seed production level, would these seeds be as stable or true to type as 1 northen lights , selfed ?
& how many seeds would u expect from selfing a small plant say 18 inches , compared to using 2 plants
Hope that makes sence !!
Selfing a plant is like crossing it with one of its siblings, in that the pollen and egg cells aren't all the identical, however, if you have proven that a plant is homozygous for a gene, selfing it allows you to know that both "parents" are homozygous for that gene, since both the pollen donor and the mother are the same plant. This saves you the trouble of having to test both parent plants for homozygosity.
If you are selecting for a dominant allele, you can only know for sure if it is heterozygous for the recessive allele by doing a breeding run. For example, if you have a generation of siblings that consists of both red plants and green plants, and the green allele is dominant (G = green / g = red), you know two things for sure. The red plants (gg) have no green allele, and the green plants have at least one green allele (GG / Gg) You do not know, however, if the green plants have a red allele, because both GG and Gg plants will be green, but only gg plants will be red.
If you want to figure out if a green plant is homozygous (GG) or heterozygous (Gg), you could cross it with a red plant (gg), and if any of the offspring are red, your green parent is heterozygous (Gg). If all of the offspring are green, your green parent is homozygous (GG) and your offspring are all heterozygous (Gg).
*Note*
The information above is a simplification of how genetic heritability factors into breeding. A lot of genes are simply dominant or recessive, but you also have some that operate somewhat differently, such as codominance and incomplete dominance. You also have traits that are polygenic, which means their expression is dependent on multiple genes. That is why humans can be a variety of heights, rather than having to be either one short height or one tall height.
