Plant crossing - crossing technology and advantages of hybrid varieties. Breeding a new variety How to breed new varieties of violets yourself

We will tell you how to cross two varieties of the same plant species with each other - this method is called hybridization. Let these be plants of different colors or different shapes of petals and leaves. Or perhaps they will differ in terms of flowering or requirements for external conditions?

Choose plants that bloom quickly to speed up the experiment. It is also better to start by choosing unpretentious flowers - for example, foxgloves, calendulas or delphiniums.

Progress of the experiment and observation diary

First, formulate your goals - what you want to get from the experiment. What desirable traits should new varieties have?

Keep a notebook-diary where you write down your goals and record the progress of the experiment from beginning to end.

Be sure to describe in detail the original plants and then the resulting hybrids. Here are the most important point: plant health, growth rate, size, color, aroma, flowering time.

Flower structure

In our article, we will use a flower as an example; you can see it in the diagram and in the photographs.

Appearance of flowers different plants may vary significantly, but is basically the same.

Pollination of a flower

1. Start by choosing two plants. There will be one pollinator, and the other - seed plant. Choose healthy and vigorous plants.

2. Keep a close eye on the seed plant. Select an unopened bud with which you will carry out all the manipulations, and mark it. Moreover, it will have to isolate before opening– tying it in a light linen bag. As soon as the flower begins to open, cut off all the stamens to prevent accidental pollination.

3. Once the flower of the seed plant has fully opened, transfer pollen to it from a pollinating plant. Pollen can be transferred using a cotton swab, a brush, or by tearing out the stamens of a pollinating flower and bringing them directly to the seed. Apply pollen to the stigma of the flower of a seed plant.

4.Put on the flower of the seed plant linen bag. Don’t forget to make the necessary notes in your observation diary about the time of pollination.

5. To be on the safe side, repeat the pollination operation after some time - for example, after a couple of days (depending on the timing of flowering).

Obtaining hybrids

1. If pollination was successful, then soon the flower will begin to fade, and the ovary will increase. Do not remove the bag from the plant until the seeds are ripe.

2. Plant the resulting seeds as seedlings. When will you receive it? young hybrid plants, then give them a separate place in the garden or transplant them into boxes.

3. Now wait for the hybrids to bloom. Don't forget to write down all your observations in your diary. Among the first, and even the second generation, there may be flowers that exactly repeat the parental properties without changes. Such specimens are immediately rejected. Check in with your goals and select among the new plants received those that best suit necessary signs. You can also pollinate them by hand, or isolate them.

If you decide to seriously develop new varieties, then you will need the advice of a specialist breeder. The point is that you will need to find out whether you actually withdrew new variety or you are following a path already trodden by someone. Competition in the field of creating new varieties is very high.

For those who have decided to experiment with hybridization as a home hobby, we wish you to get a lot of pleasure from this activity, make many joyful discoveries and finally give all your gardener friends a new variety of some wonderful flower named after itself.

Non-specialists are often suspicious of hybrid plants, not realizing that many of the crops they grow in their own garden plots, is the result of many years of work by breeders.

In dioecious plants such as spinach, when growing in one area, one of the varieties should have the male plants removed.

Crossing cross-pollinating crops in isolated areas greatly minimizes labor costs: pollination occurs naturally - by wind or insects. In addition, in one isolated area it is possible to place several plants of the same variety, thus increasing the number of hybrid seeds obtained. A significant disadvantage of this method is the impossibility of completely eliminating the ingress of foreign pollen. In addition, with natural crossover, approximately half of the plants are fertilized with pollen of their own variety.

In regions with a warm climate, where the growing season is quite long, for plants with quickly fading flowers, isolation can be used at time intervals: in the same area, different combinations crossing. Different terms flowering excludes unplanned cross-pollination.

In breeding practice, in the absence of sufficient space for organizing individual areas, insulating structures are used:

• The design is made in the form of a frame, which is covered with light transparent fabric.
• To isolate individual shoots or inflorescences, small “houses” are made of parchment paper or gauze, which are used to cover a wire frame.

For plants pollinated by insects, when constructing insulators, it is better to use materials such as cambric or gauze; for wind-pollinated crops, parchment paper.

The process of hybridization - crossing plants - is aimed at obtaining plant varieties that have advantageous properties of the parent varieties, such as:

• High yield
• Resistance to
• Frost resistance
• Drought resistance
• Short ripening times

For example, if the paternal and mother plant resistance to different diseases, then the resulting hybrid will inherit resistance to both diseases.

Hybrid plant varieties have better vitality; they are less susceptible to changes in temperature, humidity, and changes climatic conditions than their non-hybrid counterparts.

More information can be found in the video.

Breeding your own tomato variety, naming it by your own name and leaving it for descendants is not such a problem. To do this, you need to purchase seeds of some rare, exotic, super-yielding varieties and start crossing them (you can purchase seeds of more than 250 varieties of tomatoes in our online store.

All work can be divided into two stage - work in a greenhouse (2-3 years) and after a resistant variety has been developed - bureaucratic, after entering it into the state register (usually 4-5 years).

So let's start with the first stage.
Since the tomato plant is bisexual and self-pollinating, before crossing you need to remove the stamens from the flowers of the mother plant (on which you will apply the pollen of the father plant) with small tweezers - these are ideal for this. This operation is properly called castration. The flower must be supported with your left hand, and the tweezers must be in right hand. First, the petals are pulled to the sides, and then the stamens are carefully plucked out, trying to take them by the very bottom. This operation must be done very carefully so as not to damage the pistil of the flower.

The most suitable time for pollination is from 6 to 11 o'clock in the afternoon.
Pollen is collected from flowers picked from the parent variety just before pollination. It is advisable to take it from flowers that have already opened for the second or third day, and choose those whose stamens are brighter colored.
Then you need to separate a separate anther with tweezers, rip it open with tweezers with inside. The pollen should remain on the tweezers and be clearly visible. The pollen is then transferred to the stigma of the pistil. After two to three hours it germinates.
The pollination operation is easier to carry out in a greenhouse, where neither wind nor insects will disturb you. Crossing should be done on the very first two brushes.
Since flowering in tomatoes occurs unevenly, castration and pollination are carried out within two weeks.

To collect more pollen to pollinate the required number of flowers, you need to pick open flowers, separate the anthers from them and lay them out on a clean surface. white paper. After a day, the paper is carefully folded so that nothing can spill out, and it is tapped a little so that the pollen comes off. Then the paper is unrolled, the anthers are removed, and the pollen is carefully collected using a blade in one place. The pollen is poured into a glass tube, a swab is inserted from below and above, before pollination one swab is removed and the pistil of the flower is lowered into the open hole. In such a tube it is easy to regulate the flow of pollen by moving the lower swab to the top. You just need to know that pollen can be stored for one or two days, no more.
On the bush where you pollinated, only these pollinated flowers are left, and the rest that appear are removed.

The tomato is a self-fertile plant, and self-pollination between varieties without intervention is very rare, so varieties can maintain their purity indefinitely, especially since tomato pollen is considered very heavy and even with very strong wind After 50 cm it may fall, but not further. Therefore, there is no need to fear that if you planted many varieties that they will lose their varietal qualities, this will not happen. Ideally, of course, for breeding new varieties, it is better to have a small but separate greenhouse for each.

The second stage is sometimes more difficult and not always solvable for a practicing gardener. In order for your variety to become a full-fledged variety, it must be included in the state register of selection achievements.

In accordance with the Regulations for making a decision on an application for admission of a selection achievement to use: Clause 1. Breeding achievements (plant varieties, animal breeds), hereinafter referred to as “varieties”, declared for approval for use, must meet the requirements of distinctiveness, uniformity, stability and economic usefulness. Clause 2. ... If the variety does not meet the requirements of distinctiveness, uniformity or stability Registration Department and state registers makes a proposal to the expert commission to reject the application (testing of such varieties for economic usefulness is stopped). Clause 11. The following varieties are subject to exclusion from the State Register of Breeding Achievements approved for use: - for which the originator (applicant) has stopped working on maintaining the variety. , production of original seeds, payment of fees for maintaining State Register selection achievements.

Translating all of the above into simple language, we get the following:
1. A new variety of vegetables or flowers that a company wants to include in the State Register must: a) differ in some way from those already included; b) produce the same yields from year to year (to be uniform and stable) b) to have high yields (to be economically useful)
2. If the variety of vegetables or flowers does not correspond to clause 1, it will not be included in the State Register.
3. Entering a new variety of flowers or vegetables into the State Register costs money.
4. Maintaining a variety in the State Register also costs money (i.e., if the annual fee is not paid, the variety, no matter how good it is, will be excluded from the State Register).
5. The amount of payments for introducing/maintaining a variety of vegetables or flowers does not depend on the volume of its sales. Where do new varieties come from? Now, to fully understand the situation, let’s look at where new varieties of flowers or vegetables come from. I would like to immediately note that in spite of everything, in our country there are still selection work and new varieties are being developed. But very few new varieties are being developed, and only a few of them pass the stage of commercial production and reach the shelves. Therefore, for the most part, Russian packaging companies buy ready-made flower and vegetable seeds in the West, bring them to Russia and package them in colored bags. These seeds appear on sale in stores and online seed stores. Sometimes they are sold under “native” names, but often the packaging company purchases not the same variety, but different varieties vegetables or flowers of the same variety and comes up with one of their own names for them - something “super-sounding” and “invitingly beautiful”. It follows that:
1. If, for example, 2 different companies bought vegetable or flower seeds of the same variety in the West, packaged them and gave them each their own name, then both varieties cannot be entered into the State Register by definition, because they are completely identical.
2. If, for example, a packaging company buys seeds in the West not of a specific variety, but of different varieties of the same variety type and sells them under its own name, then it cannot be included in the State Register, because heterogeneous and unstable.
3. If, for example, purchased seeds of a particular variety of vegetables are distinguished not by high yield, but by the color or shape of the fruit, then it cannot be entered into the State Register, because economically useless.
4. If, for example, planned or actual sales of flower seeds or vegetables of a certain variety are not large, there is no point in entering it into the State Register, because the deposit fee, divided by the number of sachets sold, will greatly increase their cost.
5. If, for example, vegetable or flower seeds of the same variety are sold by several companies, despite the fact that the company that entered this variety into the State Register does not receive a copyright interest from them, then there is no reason for it to maintain this variety in the State Register, because They pay the money, and the rest use it for free.

Try it, and even if you don’t receive documents for your variety, believe me, the process of creating something new will captivate you for many years.

Among the huge variety of varieties of apple, pear and other species, varieties of folk selection occupy a place of honor. These include the well-known Antonovka, Anis, Grushovka and others. All of them came from wild plants forest plants and appeared as a result of long-term selection. The selection was first carried out among wild plants, then among the cultivated. Varieties of folk selection are the result of long and persistent human labor. People have learned not only to select the best gifts of nature, but also to artificially breed new varieties. "A person can and should do better than nature"- said I.V. Michurin. Paying tribute to folk selection, I. V. Michurin pointed out: “A huge collective, with a daring, inquisitive thought, must approach the matter of selection.”
As is known, the formation of hereditary characteristics of a variety ends in seedlings during the period of maturity, when the elite is selected, i.e. candidates for new varieties. Entering the nursery for propagation, they are grafted onto some rootstocks and become clones rather than seedlings. In fruit growing, a clone is the offspring of one original rooted individual.
The scheme for the birth of a new variety through artificial crossing is as follows. First, parental pairs are selected and the maternal and paternal forms are selected for crossing; the original forms are crossed by artificial pollination and hybrid fruits are grown; hybrid seeds are isolated from the fruits and sown in the breeding plot; then hybrid seedlings are raised and selected; the most valuable hybrid seedlings, the elite, are identified, and from the elite, seedlings worthy of being called a variety are selected. After this, the bred varieties are submitted to variety testing.
What is variety testing? This is a deep and comprehensive study of new varieties in various natural conditions. Variety testing consists of three stages: primary, or station, study of the variety at experimental bases of research institutions, experimental stations, and in pomological gardens; tests at a variety testing site, where varieties are carefully selected, discarding those that have proven themselves negative side, after which the best of the selected varieties are sent for production testing under production conditions under the control of the variety testing commission. It assigns names to new varieties, establishes copyrights, issues copyright certificates, develops passports for new varieties and gives them a “start in life.” The best varieties that have passed the tests are included in the standard assortment of a particular area and are subject to reproduction in the usual manner.
This is general scheme birth of a new variety using the method of sexual hybridization. In addition, varieties are also obtained vegetatively - using vegetative hybridization. It is possible to obtain a new variety through clonal selection. To do this, deviations that are interesting in terms of economic characteristics are selected from the crown of fruit-bearing trees and fixed by grafting onto rootstocks. So I.V. Michurin developed a new variety, Antonovka six hundred grams. It was obtained from a “sport” bud variation found on one of the branches of the old variety Antonovka Mogilevskaya white.
Finally, new varieties can be created by sowing seeds obtained from open pollination. But only some varieties are suitable for this. Many varieties are obtained from the seeds of Belleflerkitaika, Pepin saffron and others. They have a good hereditary basis and provide a large percentage cultivated seedlings thanks to long-term education and selection.
In fruit growing, a variety is understood as the vegetative offspring of one mother plant obtained as a result of one or another selection method. This plant is identified as a result of careful selection and education and becomes a source vegetative propagation new variety. For the purpose of propagation, cuttings are cut, the ocellar (axillary) buds are separated from them and grafted onto rootstocks in a nursery. Trees grown by grafting have all the characteristics and properties of a mother tree - a rooted seedling. The trees obtained by grafting then become mother trees themselves and are used for vegetative propagation. For this purpose, the best trees in terms of yield and other characteristics are selected under production conditions, from which cuttings are cut and transferred to a nursery for growing planting material.
A very important and valuable feature of a newly bred variety is its constancy, i.e. ability to reproduce best qualities parents in vegetative generations. If the variety did not have conservatism of heredity and changed under the influence of the rootstock and other reasons, it would not have economic significance.
But it would be wrong to think that the immutability of a variety is absolute and persists for centuries. When the original mother seedling dies, the source of propagation of the new variety is its descendants - other mother trees, but already obtained by vegetative means. Possessing the relative stability of valuable traits, the grafted trees themselves gradually change during the cultivation process. Changes depend on the age of the variety itself, growing conditions, movement of the variety to other geographical zones, the level of agricultural technology, the influence of the rootstock and other reasons and can be positive and negative. Changes in grafted trees differ sharply from changes occurring in the life of a seedling.
What is the essence of changes at the earliest stage of development and is it possible to control them in the direction desired for a person?

When doing breeding at home, how do you know if you have a new variety? I can tell you a lot about gloxinias, although I only recently began to be interested in them. What’s most fascinating is that you can do pollination and grow new varieties yourself from the resulting seeds. Otherwise everything is very simple. The main thing is to sterilize the soil for planting seeds (I do this in the oven) and cover the leaf with a greenhouse for rooting. And two more factors:

1) light mode is good to choose lighting, especially in conditions without artificial lighting;

2) irrigation mode, water should cover the entire surface of the substrate, and not just half of it.

Following the path of mistakes, I came to the following:

I place my gloxinias on the southern windowsill, but in summer period I shade it with old tulle;

I use wick watering (this is especially convenient and effective for a large collection).

When doing home breeding, how do you know if you have a new plant variety? Do I need to register it somehow in order to assign my name? And if so, how to do it? Which organization should I contact?

Many amateur gardeners receive seeds, and then seedlings, from their home plants. But in order for them to become official varieties, it is necessary to do great job. When pollinating flowers, you must record which pairs produced the seeds. Next, you need to select from all the seedlings those that have clearly distinguishable features, and you should take into account not only decorative qualities (flower size, shape, color), but also the number of flowers, the duration of their flowering, the shape and quality of the leaves, general view plants, disease resistance, etc.

If the seedling is better for most of these characteristics famous varieties, you must propagate it in order to have a sufficient number of copies, and at the same time check how well it reproduces and how accurately it transmits and retains its characteristics. Only after this can you name your intended variety and submit your application to the variety testing commission. Experts will check whether this name has been used previously and whether the variety meets standard requirements. After this, you will receive documents for authorship.