Nevil
Breeder
Quote:
Originally Posted by GreenintheThumb View Post
So do you believe that every plant can form pods?
I don't know GitT. All I can do is speculate. If you had asked, do you believe that every plant can produce viable pollen, I would answer, No.
I believe that plants containing what I now understand is the MADC sequence can. I believe that the MADC, when coupled with an X chromosome, i.e. X(Xy) the small y representing the MADC linked to an X, can exhibit vaying degrees of masculinity, ranging from plants that will only produce pollen under extreme duress, to plants that will always produce some pollen regardless of conditions. I believe that a true hermaphrodite is a plant that can be represented in this way, (Xy)(Xy) and that all of the offspring from such a plant will fall into the former category when crossed with a true female, i.e. XX.
I don't think that true XX females are as common as you might imagine and that such females may or may not produce pods, but there will not be viable pollen. I am inclined to think that the use of a true male, i.e. XY has some mechanism that suppresses to some degree the latent y in in daughters that pick up the MADC sequence from their intersex mothers. I have no idea what mechanism is in play here as the daughters of the true male, do not pick up the Y from the father.
I'm also inclined to believe that it is possible for the y to be uncoupled from the X in X(Xy) female to produce a true XY male, although I wouldn't care to speculate how common that is.
I'd also speculate that the Y, when inherited singly ( not coupled to an X) effectively suppresses the plants ability to produce ethylene, and therefore female flowers and when coupled to an X, it does not.
It is my belief that where the sex of seedlings is influenced by environmental conditions, what is really happening is that the latent y in X(Xy) is being stimulated or suppressed by the environmental conditions.
When dealing with true male, true female matings the male to female ratios will statistically be 1:1, regardless of environmental conditions.
I am not an expert on feminisation. There are a lot of people who have done more work in this area than I.
The above is merely speculation based on observation.
N.