What is a "strain"

[travis]

Originally Posted by Fusion_power

What is the difference between a glass half empty and a glass half full?

Nothing.

But I was thinking more that a breeding line would be stable to 99% or greater, and essentially beyond segregation except for the rare occurences of somatic or spontaneous mutations.

And I don't think of segregating expressions of purposeful crosses to be individual strains of a breeding line. For example NC 58S, NC 127 S, and NC 132 S, all of which are stable breeding lines developed by NCSU from Amelia F1. Should I consider the previously segregating lines of Amelia toward those three now stable breeding lines to have been strains on their way to being breeding lines?

I guess I thought a strain was stable, such as Platfoot Strain of Yellow Brandywine supposedly is a stable selection.

[carolyn137]

Comments here for Fusion, Travis and Petronius

I'll go back to my post in this thread, #2 post, where I posted:

(To me a strain is a version of an original where there are subtle yet permanent differences yet the variant can be IDed as being almost the same as the original due to other traits of that original.)

And the rest of my post gave examples.

Darrel, I've never heard/read of anyone referring to anything in a segregating line, before reaching stability, being called a strain. Only when something is genetically stable and there are slight deviations from the original that are permanent. And I mentioned a couple in my #2 post here.

Travis, a couple of days ago I gave a link somewhere here and in that link there was another link to Ken Ettlinger's Brandywine discussion so for those interested who didn't see that I thought I'd link directly to it again:

http://www.liseed.org/brandy.html

I knew of Ken's Brandywine interests in the 80's, received his small paper catalog but never ordered anything from it. Craig got his Brandywine ( Sudduth/Quisenberry) from Ken and that's the one he sent to Johnny's and also me. And to me I think perhaps in the early 90's, I can't remember the exact date. All I know is that by that time I"D grown several of the so called Brandywine strains I was thrilled with the one Craig sent me, from Ken Ettlinger b/c it was so much better than what I had been growing re Brandywines.

Petronius, I had to back up to see what you were referring to and I think it was something like most folks prefer the Sudduth/Quisenberry strain of Brandywine.

I know a lot of folks do, but I can't say most b'c I have no data to back that up. Lots of folks are now comparing the Sudduth one with Cowlicks and the Croatian Brandywine ( which didn't originate in Croatia), and I have no idea how that's going to turn out.

Given that there are so many variables that can influence variety performance and given that tastes are personal, perceptual and actually have a genetic component, there will always be differences of opinion on almost any variety that's grown.