North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Doug Woodard <dwoodard@becon.org>]

I would be cautious about assuming that all or most sports are caused by 
natural radiation.Cell division is complicated and Murphy's Law is 
pretty general.

Back in the 1970's, the Summerland BC station of Agriculture Canada 
publsihed a booklet on its fruit cultivars which mentioned that 
cultivers developed by neutron bombardment of (I think) seeds of older 
cultivers, had been found to be unstable. I think that Compact Lambert 
was one.

I have no idea whether mutations produced by other forms of radiation 
tend to instability; I suspect not.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


Ginda Fisher wrote:
> A bunch of apple cultivars were developed by exposing a buds of older 
> cultivars to radiation.  I think that's where a lot of the "spur" 
> type, redder types, and some other variants of popular cultivars come 
> from.  Some are randomly found sports, of course (which are usually 
> the result of natural radiation changing the genes in a bud) but I 
> think a lot were intentionally created.
>
> It sounds like this method is very widespread.
>
> Ginda
>
> On Aug 28, 2007, at 12:07 PM, Brungardt, Sam wrote:
>
> > Some of you may find this story disturbing, but I found it 
> > interesting and informative even though the writer described Japanese 
> > pears as a cross between apples and pears. -- Sam Brungardt, St. 
> > Paul, Minn.
> >
> > *Useful Mutants, Bred With Radiation*
> > Public fears aside, scientists mimic nature's genetic scrambling to  
> > bolster fruits and vegetables, as well as beer and whiskey.
> >
> > _http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/28/science/28crop.html?th&emc=th_ 
> > <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/28/science/28crop.html?th&emc=th>