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This can be a long discussion. Also, what is important in Florida may be of no concern in Ohio. The DL growers in Wisconsin may never know if a plant is resistant to rust or will be infested.
I have grown up raising registered livestock and with animal husbandry research, genetic traits have over time been able to be scored as Estimated Breeding Values (EBD's). Assigning a score for genetic traits allows selection based on your priorities. For example if you wanted to breed growth rate you could select parents with high EBD's for growth. This type of research has not been done when it comes to plants and it seem much more complex. When you line-breed (use the same parent genetics) you will increase the traits of the parents used. This will be both good and bad traits. (problem is you only know what you observe) I have discussed parent DL's with hybridizers and discover that personal research finds parents that pass on traits that the parent does not exhibit. ( it must be in the genetic make up and possibly a dominate trait)
The only way to do this is to establish standards of evaluation and collect the data from growers and breeders and evaluate and draw conclusions. This is very difficult with plants. (and not likely any money to do it) Plants are more varied with growing zones. Most likely it is very difficult to do in a calculated way. If we stumble on the something that works then propagate it and sell it.
The bottom line is that not all traits are equally inherited (dominate vs recessive) and we don't know for example how rust resistance passes on. If you have a goal and work with plants it is all about what you observe. After several generations the trait you were selecting for may appear and you find success. It can take a very long time, so I will leave it to Ashton (15 years old) if he keeps his interest in DL's maybe he can figure some of it out.
Terry
