North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Naomi" <dragon-star@cableone.net>]

I raise beefalo (among other things).  The pregnancy of the unlike species is difficult.  However if the 50% bison calf is female she is fertile.  it is the males that are sterile. 

 

Cross the female 50% back to the bison and get 75%  this will be fertile if male or female.  back to a bovine (possible pregnancy problems) for a 3/8 bison also called a fullblood beefalo.  The 3/8 is fertile wether male or female and will breed true.

 

Fertility problems are male only and are most severe at 50%.  When you are at least 12% away (either direction ) from 50 you should be okay.

Naomi

Idaho

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From: nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Jwlehman@aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 8:51 AM
To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [NAFEX] Mules, Beefalo & persimmon

Most people think of Beefalo as a cross of Bovine 
and Bison. Well, it is, but not 50/50.

The two will readily mate. They 
are quite different. There are enough physical differences seldom do they carry 
through to a live birth. When one does it is usually sterile. Very occasionally 
one will be fertile and it is back crossed to Bovine. Most of these back crosses 
are also sterile but when one is fertile it is once again back crossed to 
Bovine. I once had one of these 1/4 Bison 3/4 Bovine bulls with the idea of 
raising beefalo. Really beautiful animal, wavy hair, light tan and very gentle. 
For a year he ran with 5 mama cows, he did his thing, the cows were happy, but 
no calves. He too was sterile. The point is sterility goes hand in hand with 
hybrids of different species and a problem when breeding those hybrids. 

I've been told very rarely a mule will have a live birth but few 
survive. 

A tool often used in hybridizing as Lon wrote is doubling the 
chromosome numbers thus creating tetraploids, or 2 sets of each 
chromosome.  But if you cross this to a diploid the result is a triploid 
(three chromosomes of each) which resulting plant or animal is sterile. The 
interesting question is, why are the 90 chromosome American persimmon and the 90 
chromosome kaki persimmons nearly impossible to hybridize? Both are hexiploid, 
or three sets of each chromosome. There should be lots of chromosomes to match 
up easily. But they don't, at least not easily. The Russian hybrid of kaki x 
virginiana, Rosseyanka, does produce a few seeds and some of them produce 
seedlings. Whether they are apomictic or a recombination with pollen is still 
not known for sure, but think they are out crosses. None of the about 10 growing 
here have born fruit yet, but the leaf differences would indicate 
outcrosses.  

For what it's worth! 

Jerry 

PS. 
Japanese research scientists have found that some kaki are 120 chromosome. They 
are breeding these for larger fruiting kaki. As 120 C. would have larger pollen 
grains they are sifting pollen through stretched silk cloth. The smaller grains 
(likely 90 C.) fall through and the larger grains remaining in the cloth are 
used for breeding.