In the example, the seedling that appears to be the cultivar is a sibling and like human siblings even though it is very much like the cultivar the probability that it is the same is exceedingly small. If the plants are diploid then that probability could be approximated as 1/(4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4). There are 11 chromosomes and if we treat each chromosome as a unit (an over-simplification) and each parent as having two different chromosomes for each of the 11 pairs then that works out to be one in 4,194,304. If the plants are tetraploids then it becomes much more complicated. Again making all sorts of simplifying assumptions the probability could be 1/(4 x 4 x 4.... x 4 x 4) except in this case there are 22 fours or it could be 1/(36 x 36 x 36 .... x 36 x 36) with 11 thirty-sixes or something in between.
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I am curious about self pollination. Would you run the numbers?
Thanks,
Gerry
