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Crossing Bing and Van = Rainier cherry?
Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2009 1:11 pm
by chinnlab
Can one get Rainier by crossing Bing and Van, what are the original wild types?
Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2009 5:46 pm
by JONA878
Hi Chinnlab
Although Rainier is indeed a cross between Bing and Van. You cannot duplicate it again by doing crosses between those varieties yourself.
The variation from the original gene mix would be too great.
That's why any variety is always propogated on with material that goes back to the original mother tree.
In fact with modern genetic tracing the breeding and research stations are constantly checking to make sure that all varieties that are marketed do indeed have the original mother tree parentage.
Jona.
Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2009 2:27 am
by Diane
That's very interesting. Is it one mother tree?
I never knew it could be so intricate.
Where would a person find the material? Or would they just buy it already put together?
Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2009 7:03 am
by JONA878
Hi Diane,
Yes there is only one original 'mother ' tree.
A breeder will start off with perhaps upwards of a thousand seedlings from a particular crossing.
He/ she then over several years gradually discards plants for a variety of reasons....poor growth,,,desease succeptabilty....poor cropping and lousy fruit...etc.
Eventually they will be left with just a few that they are pleased with. These will be bulked up by grafting and nowadays tip culture and the resulting trees sent out to various orchards to test them in actual growing and soil conditions and climate variations.
When these results are in then it will be decided if any of them are good enough for public sale.
Its a long process that usually takes about ten years or so.
The individual tree is then propogated up into a series of mother trees that go out to the nurseries for them to increase the numbers.
All the time though the variety can be traced directly back to the original mother tree.
Quite a process.
Jona.
Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 2:59 am
by Diane
Jona, thank you for the explanation. It is facinating.