Hybrid plants have a bad reputation in some circles because of the way they have been exploited by the commercial seed companies that profit from them, however hybrids are not necessarily a bad thing. Hybrids do occur in nature, and they are in fact one of the mechanisms of evolution.
When done on a small scale and then followed through for several generations and stabilized, a new variety can help to fill a niche or replace a variety that has been lost to us. The problems with hybrids arise when patented and unstabilized F1 varieties are released on a large scale onto an unsuspecting world.
Not all varieties can be crossed to create a desirable new variety, often the results are poor in quality, so it takes a lot
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of work to find two compatible varieties that will result in a new high quality variety. When two varieties are crossed together with a desirable result, the resulting hybrid will display what is called hybrid vigor. This means that the offspring, known as an F1 or first filial, will display stronger growth and yield patterns than either of the parent varieties. Because this is the first generation and all the offspring share equal amounts of DNA from both parents, they will be uniform in growth and yield. This is an important selling point for commercially produced seed. The problem arises in the second generation, known as the F2 stage. Now the genes of the plants start to get mixed up and they will show little uniformity in growth patterns and yield. This means that gardeners and farmers cannot save their own seeds for next year‟s crop and have to keep returning to the seed company for next season‟s seeds.
However, should the gardener feel inclined, it is possible to take a hybrid F1 variety and stabilize it, thereby creating a new seedling variety. This is done by applying discriminating selection, that is, choose the best offspring that arise in each generation and continue to propagate each successive generation from the best plants only. Remove and use for mulch all inferior plants and make sure they do not reproduce. It is usual to start with only a few good plants in the first generation and work with up to 50 plants per generation after that in order to find one or more plants that will display desirable qualities. The new hybrid strain should be quite stable after four generations and could be considered a new variety by the seventh generation.
Of course this is all an enormous amount of work and this is what the seed companies profit from as it means that gardeners and farmers are very unlikely to go through this process and will be more inclined to go back to the seed company to purchase their next seasons seeds.
However, there is little need for hybrids because there are already hundreds, even thousands of different varieties to choose from. For example the wheat plant alone had some
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seventy thousand different strains just a century ago. This degree of diversity exists because these crops were looked after by so many different people, in so many valleys for so long. Every people had their own variety and sadly many of them are now lost to the age of industrial farming practices. But there is still a lot out there in need of looking after. This vast bank of agricultural heritage represents the history of human endeavor, our role in nature and our future. All these varieties have different needs and will give different returns; that is what bio-diversity means, there is something out there for everyone, everywhere, it‟s all a matter of getting connected and finding out what you need to suite your circumstances and then looking after what you have chosen. When there is that much diversity in the world it takes everyone working together to protect it and you can help by having a garden and keeping the treasures of our ancestors alive.
Discriminating selection should also be applied to stable varieties to ensure they maintain their desirable qualities and gradually improve with successive generations. This might be thought of as natural genetic engineering.
One example of organic and stable hybrid varieties, are the three rice strains called happy hills rice that were developed by Mr. Masanobu Fukuoka. He grew and stabilised them over some three decades. They are stable and hardy varieties and suitable for growing in a number of different environments and have some of the highest yields of any strains of rice. Sadly in researching this chapter I have learnt that Mr. Fukuoka retired from farming in his later years and lost his three strains of happy hills rice. He did however distribute them to various interested people around the world and if anyone out there has any idea where they might be found, please let me know via my web site. Larry Korn, who co-wrote the English translation of „The One Straw Revolution‟, is also looking for them too.