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best comfrey question yet

 
john muckleroy jr
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posted 11 years ago
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If I plant the 3 varieties of comfrey together is there a danger of them crossing?

"Imagination is more valuable than knowledge".Einstein

 
R Scott
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posted 11 years ago
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Only one propagates by seed. The two hybrids may pollinate the true, but the seeds won't be viable. What you will get is seed with a low germination rate but still true to type.

"You must be the change you want to see in the world." "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." --Mahatma Gandhi
"Preach the Gospel always, and if necessary, use words." --Francis of Assisi.
"Family farms work when the whole family works the farm." -- Adam Klaus

 
Michael Cox
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posted 11 years ago
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There is a book 'breed your own vegetable varieties' that might be worth a look. Basically you probably can cross them and there is a reasonable chance that any cross might be 'interesting'. These techniques are used to bring traits from distantly related species into a desired crop.

Say you have a wild plant resistant to disease that you want to bring in to your domestic crop. Force a cross between them then repeatedly select and breed back those offspring to the crop plant. In a few generations you will have a new plant variety that has the genes for resistance and is similar to the domestic crop.

Is there a reason you might want to cross these comfrey plants?

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John Polk
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posted 11 years ago
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Is there a reason you might want to cross these comfrey plants?


The 2 Bocking varieties are already hybrid crossbreeds, (x uplandicum) and are sterile.
Of the 3, only the true comfrey can be propagated by seed.

Of the 21 known Bocking varieties, only two are commonly found (4 & 14) - they must have been the only two to have shown enough potential to continue with propagation programs.

 
Michael Cox
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Thanks John,

I didn't know the specifics of comfrey crossing. I suspect that you could recross the hybrids back with the true comfrey (pollen from the cross) and perhaps end up with a viable seed?

Moderator, Treatment Free Beekeepers group on Facebook.
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Leila Rich
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Michael Cox wrote: recross the hybrids back with the true comfrey (pollen from the cross) and perhaps end up with a viable seed?


We only have the sterile Bocking cultivars in NZ, and I've never, ever heard of them reproducing from seed.
But then I don't think I've ever met a plant as keen to grow from root cuttings
 
Michael Cox
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Leica - I'm not suggesting you could harvest seed from the sterile plants, but that using a bocking to pollinate a true (fertile) comfrey would give seeds on the true comfrey that should contain genetics of both the bocking and true comfrey, and may be fertile.

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Leila Rich
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Michael Cox wrote:I'm not suggesting you could harvest seed from the sterile plants, but that using a bocking to pollinate a true (fertile) comfrey

sorry Michael, I didn't read/understand your post properly
 
Michael Cox
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I quite understand - I remember reading that passage of the book half a dozen times before I got my head around it. Short version - you can get the genetics out of 'sterile' plants by repeatedly crossing them with fertile relatives. It opens up options when considering plant breeding for new varieties. Your first generation cross is likely to be sterile, especially if using distant relatives, but over a number of years you can often breed back to a fertile cross with the genetics of both.

In the case of the bocking varieties - one of their most useful traits is their sterility, so they don't run rampant.

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