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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] Tree clones from different nurseries grow differently

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  • From: "Richard L. Wagner" <rewagner@centurytel.net>
  • To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Tree clones from different nurseries grow differently
  • Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 15:14:10 -0400



Plants are not animals. They can not be trained to fetch, roll over, and sit on command.
A more likely explanation is that the zones numbers are generalizations that do not take into account a multiplicity of variable growing conditions. Onset of first major freeze? Is it preceded by a natural hardening off cycle or does it just come, ZAP, out of the blue. How dry are the winters, this is in reference to my loss of persimmon trees last season. A friend 20 miles north at higher elevation didn't lose any trees but has zero crop this year. Do you have good snow cover? We are in relatively warm 6b-7a so I doubt that temperature by itself was the cause. We don't have any winter snow cover. It snows 2-3 times a season, usually 5-8 inches, and all melts in 2-3 days. Here our greatest problem is an early warm spring that causes trees to flush with new growth, buds, flowers and then, ZAP, a dramatic freeze that catches all the succulent new growth and sometimes causes major injury or death to the trees especially young ones. When I lived in eastern Oregon where it was a definite zone 5 we never had that problem with false springs. When it was cold it stayed cold, enough to keep the plants in dormancy, and when spring came it stayed.
All men are not created equal and neither are all zones.
Quoting Alexander Brands :
> Miller isn't the only one making a similar claim. I believe St. > Lawrence does also. >
> Raising in a colder climate is not going to change the basic genetics. > That requires changing the genetic combinations (genotype) generation
> to generation combined with selection.
This is true

> The one thing growing in a cold
> climate does is to provide the stress that helps identify which clones
> are most vulnerable. In the absence of genetic mutations, naturally a
> very slow process, it can only weed out the weakest but not increase
> the strongest. Where the plant is grown is not going to make a
> difference

This may not be true. In animals, including humans, there is good
evidence that the behavior and environment of an individual has an
effect on the phenotype, or characteristics of the offspring. For
example, the eating behavior of a person can have an effect on their
offspring's propensity for obesity, an effect independent of genetics. Google "epigenetics". This is a relatively new field of study in
biology, and it would not be surprising if more examples are found. It's not much of a stretch to suppose a similar effect occurs in
vegetatively propagated plants.
Alex

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