Hi Cinda,
I get 4 generations a year, 2 outdoors and 2 indoors. That gives me a powerful advantage in my zinnia breeding project. In a year I can select and grow a first generation of zinnias, evaluate them and make crosses between them. I save F1 hybrid seeds from those crosses and, in the second generation, grow them to the blooming stage, which lets me see what those crosses look like. (If you ever decide to make your own zinnia crosses, you will find yourself really wondering what those crosses are going to look like, and very excited when they start to show their first flower buds.)
For my second generation, I can pick which of my new hybrids I want to cross pollinate, and make hybrids between those first generation hybrids. In my third generation I am growing hybrids between hybrids and as they come into bloom I can see what those produced, pick my favorites, make hybrids between hybrids of hybrids, and in my fourth generation I am growing those hybrids between hybrids of hybrids and as the fourth generation comes into bloom I can see those results, pick my favorites, and make hybrids between hybrids between hybrids between hybrids to produce those seeds. That gets kind of mind boggling.
However, what I do in one year is just what regular zinnias do in four years. The complexity is the same, it just takes longer at normal speed. Remember, zinnias are bee pollinated. And bees are kind of random in their behavior, and some of their pollinations are, in fact, cross pollinations. Albeit, rather unknown random cross pollinations.
But the important implication of that is the commercial packet of field grown zinnia seeds you buy actually has some F1 hybrid seed, courtesy of the bees. And the seed stock for that field of zinnias was also bee pollinated, so the field already contained some F1 hybrid zinnias and a few of those were randomly crossed to produce hybrids between hybrids. And, as far back as you want to think, the previous seed fields contained a few bee hybrids from the field before, so courtesy of the bees you may be getting some hybrids between hybrids between hybrids (ad nauseum) in your commercial seed packet.
So, there isn't that much difference between what I do and what the bees do. I just do it faster. Do I make some dumb choices in what I cross? Undoubtedly. Are all of my choices dumb? Possibly. But I label my plants, and keep records of my crosses in a garden journal. Which gives me a big advantage over the bees.
ZM
