seed variance
While I work in the legal profession, it is not uncommon for me to converse through my work with those that have taken the other path.
In one such conversation a local "botanist" of some repute spoke cadidly of his growing knowledge and he explained to me that he only cloned plants as you could take 100 seeds and some would be tall, some short some weak and some strong.
As I have never heard of anyone cloning palms, I would assume then that we must try and plant many palms and eventually weed out the weak ones so that all seed being produced is hardy?
Gradually as the weaker strains of palms die off, I would think eventually through natural selection here in BC we would have some very hardy palms.
This method is costly in time, but in the long run will yield stronger exotics I believe in the PNW.
No one wants to lose a plant, but I think it may be a good thing for the odd one to die especially if it is not bolstering the seed gene pool so to speak.
...or I could be right out to lunch if the palm is different than most plants and actually has the ability to produce seeds that are all identical from one plant. Your thoughts?
The following thread was started by Carl McIntosh on December 31, 2002 at 6:08 pm PST