Is it true that named clones are negligibly different from standard varieties?

[Glass Roots]

I've seen many people state that the difference in named clones and standard bridgesii, peruv, pach, ect. is barely noticeable. A lot of them attribute this to there not being enough selective breeding over generations, but is that true? I know there has been enough time since the introduction of trich's to accomplish this, but not knowing the lineage of all of the clones I couldn't say for certain that they haven't all just acquired a slight variation via their natural habitat.

[qualia]

imo it varies. while i don't have many clones i can from the ones i do have there's definite traits as to make them noticeable. there was an attempt a little while before to establish a definitive database but doesn't seem like it got off the ground. there's several threads on this board i think which lists a few of them.

[thistime]

hey, hope your well. this is a site i came across a while back. im a complete newb so i dont know how reliable the info is or even if its been rated here before so take what you want from it but it has some good pics at least.

http://www.sacredcactus.com/index.htm

[Evil Genius]

Many named clones are pretty similar to the classic Varieties but there are exceptions. I am still working on the Trichocereus website and it will be online in a few months. Was thrown back because of health problems but im better now. Trout has just hooked me up with a large mass of pictures of Trichocereus and Lophophora and in the next few weeks, i will start watermarking and uploading them. Some people have written me that they be happy to volunteer writing the named clone database and i hope that offer still stand. We will be putting together some very neat sites and basically the largest online collection of Trichocereus Pictures anywhere in the world.

Edited August 21, 2013 by Evil Genius

[Stillman]

You can start in PDs photo gallery he has listed alot of big clone names. Unfortunately no photos of flowers but maybe he has them as well. Its a very good starting place.

Edited August 21, 2013 by Stillman

[naja naja]

http://trichoseriousethnobotany.blogspot.com.au/

Here's a pretty comprehensive list of aussie clones with pics,

Clones have many and varied reasons for naming, some do it simply to keep track of a particular and usually distinct clone in their collection and it sort of rolls on from there when cuttings are gifted. Some are named because they are distinctly different and or to keep track of particular specimens found growing wild or in large old gardens. A name is assigned to simply keep track of that distinct clone and people can look up the heritage of said varieties. It's a horticultural thing and certainly not nessisary for day to day cultivation. But from a distribution and marketing standpoint and even patenting, plant breeders rights, etc it is nessisary. like having granny smith, gala, golden delicious, fuji or pink lady apples. These are variety names and marketing names. The pink lady for example is actually a cripps pink apple, but it doesn't quite have the same ring as pink lady does it? Also, pink lady is a bit of a tribute to one of it's parents, the Lady Williams apple discovered as a chance seedling in Pemberton western australia from memory, or maybe it was donnybrook, in that apple growing area anyway. Or the fuji apple, oh how sweet, they really should be called candy apples. And thats a variety name, within the variety of fuji apples there are many different and distinct cultivars. Most supermarket fuji will be Naga Fu 2, but there's many more.

These are just the unpatented ones, there's over 20 patented cultivars of fuji apples, all resulting from bud sport mutations.

BC 2, Desert Rose Fuji, Nagafu 2, Nagafu 6, Nagafu 12, Redsport Type 1, Redsport Type 2

And same goes for lots of things we eat, but u will just see them sold as carrots, pumpkins, oranges, aplles, couliflower, brocolli, beetroot, rhubarb, asparagus, grapes, etc,etc, u get the idea, nearly everything.

But, We are not quite there yet with trichs, maybe the TBM variagated cultivar of clone a from cactus art and a few others are just getting there, but now we need to wait for plants to mature, be bred from and repeated over and over until we are quite at that point with trichs. Nitrogens's X's, PD's X's and many others are the pioneers of this work, keeping track of the linieges of these cacti to try and end up with seedlings that carry desirable traits. You can see that alot of work has been done with the echinpsis hybrids and this can perhaps give a glimps of what is possible within this genera, it just depends on what desirable trait u are breeding for. This is not exhaustive, just summarizing the process of naming and breeding.

For example, i have many of nitrogens X's growing atm, but will only give them a variety name when I start propagating them, and this will simply to keep track of one distinct clone from another. And this does not indicate anything more than it is genetically different or the same as another plant if I were to loose track or couldn't tell which was which. This is also important when breeding plants where they are not self fertile as it ensure u are breeding 2 genetically distinct plants, or for fruit tree's get good crosspollenation and hense good fruit set.

Have I bored u yet?

[naja naja]

To summarize, yes, named clones can be negligably diff or no, depends which named clone u are comparing against which unnamed clone and what differences your are comparing, spination, colour, skin texture, chemistry.

A sundowner apple is similar to a pink lady, infact they have the same mum and dad. There true variety names are cripps red and cripps pink respectively. But are they negligibly different?

[Halcyon Daze]

Some are often very different in some aspects/ traits and some are often very similar in other aspects/ traits. It depends on which clone and which trait. I guess you're talking about some particular traits, but I think there is no definitive answer to your question, regardless of the trait.

People name clones (or have them named after them) for a variety of reasons.

If I was going to name a clone, it would be because it was my personal favorite, based mainly on all-round genetic stamina as well as aesthetics.

I like the big fat blue ones

Edited August 21, 2013 by Halcyon Daze

[Glass Roots]

Thanks for the fast replies.

hey, hope your well. this is a site i came across a while back. im a complete newb so i dont know how reliable the info is or even if its been rated here before so take what you want from it but it has some good pics at least.

http://www.sacredcactus.com/index.htm

I'm actually waiting for some seeds/cuttings to come in from SS, they have a few crosses/clones that I don't have in my collection yet. I'll be getting their catalog in with my shipment, and I'll definitely give it a nice look through once it arrives.

Many named clones are pretty similar to the classic Varieties but there are exceptions. I am still working on the Trichocereus website and it will be online in a few months. Was thrown back because of health problems but im better now. Trout has just hooked me up with a large mass of pictures of Trichocereus and Lophophora and in the next few weeks, i will start watermarking and uploading them. Some people have written me that they be happy to volunteer writing the named clone database and i hope that offer still stand. We will be putting together some very neat sites and basically the largest online collection of Trichocereus Pictures anywhere in the world.

Very interested in this! I'll keep my eye out for the release. Both of these Genus' deserve to be photographed like models.

http://trichoseriousethnobotany.blogspot.com.au/

Here's a pretty comprehensive list of aussie clones with pics,

Clones have many and varied reasons for naming, some do it simply to keep track of a particular and usually distinct clone in their collection and it sort of rolls on from there when cuttings are gifted. Some are named because they are distinctly different and or to keep track of particular specimens found growing wild or in large old gardens. A name is assigned to simply keep track of that distinct clone and people can look up the heritage of said varieties. It's a horticultural thing and certainly not nessisary for day to day cultivation. But from a distribution and marketing standpoint and even patenting, plant breeders rights, etc it is nessisary. like having granny smith, gala, golden delicious, fuji or pink lady apples. These are variety names and marketing names. The pink lady for example is actually a cripps pink apple, but it doesn't quite have the same ring as pink lady does it? Also, pink lady is a bit of a tribute to one of it's parents, the Lady Williams apple discovered as a chance seedling in Pemberton western australia from memory, or maybe it was donnybrook, in that apple growing area anyway. Or the fuji apple, oh how sweet, they really should be called candy apples. And thats a variety name, within the variety of fuji apples there are many different and distinct cultivars. Most supermarket fuji will be Naga Fu 2, but there's many more.

These are just the unpatented ones, there's over 20 patented cultivars of fuji apples, all resulting from bud sport mutations.

BC 2, Desert Rose Fuji, Nagafu 2, Nagafu 6, Nagafu 12, Redsport Type 1, Redsport Type 2

And same goes for lots of things we eat, but u will just see them sold as carrots, pumpkins, oranges, aplles, couliflower, brocolli, beetroot, rhubarb, asparagus, grapes, etc,etc, u get the idea, nearly everything.

But, We are not quite there yet with trichs, maybe the TBM variagated cultivar of clone a from cactus art and a few others are just getting there, but now we need to wait for plants to mature, be bred from and repeated over and over until we are quite at that point with trichs. Nitrogens's X's, PD's X's and many others are the pioneers of this work, keeping track of the linieges of these cacti to try and end up with seedlings that carry desirable traits. You can see that alot of work has been done with the echinpsis hybrids and this can perhaps give a glimps of what is possible within this genera, it just depends on what desirable trait u are breeding for. This is not exhaustive, just summarizing the process of naming and breeding.

For example, i have many of nitrogens X's growing atm, but will only give them a variety name when I start propagating them, and this will simply to keep track of one distinct clone from another. And this does not indicate anything more than it is genetically different or the same as another plant if I were to loose track or couldn't tell which was which. This is also important when breeding plants where they are not self fertile as it ensure u are breeding 2 genetically distinct plants, or for fruit tree's get good crosspollenation and hense good fruit set.

Have I bored u yet?

Not boring me at all! The cultivation of plants is my lifelong dream/reality. Specifically the breeding of new strains/cultivars of a few different species.

Thanks for the link and for the info on a few of those who are actually selectively breeding. I'm definitely going to give the site a thorough read. I figured this was the case that many of the named clones were either wild plants or 1st/2nd generations with desirable traits. I hope that many more people begin to create unique cultivars of these amazing plants. Imagine if the diversity of these cacti reached even 10% that of weed.

Edited August 21, 2013 by Glass Roots

[nitrogen]

At this point we're still in the infancy of selective breeding - most all named clones are first generation, wild, or presumably older-world plants that have been growing for quite sometime...

We're getting some breeding going with the progeny of previous crosses though, now that those crosses are getting to maturity - takes several years with trichos before they will flower. But, we're now seeing some now - like naja naja said we really ought to name them for sake of keeping track too - I crossed some seedlings at this point - two types of cuzcoensis, an SS02 x pachanoi, and an ecuadorian pachanoi - really ought to name them but it hasn't been an issue because those same hybrids haven't to my knowledge been crossed by others yet. I have named the cuzcoensis' (one is "blonde" and one is "brunette") but I can't recal which was in which cross lol. And others who have crossed seedlings have not been naming the seedling either (Zelly's and Mitosis's SS02 x SS01, Melvin's T. Macrogonus "Icaros", and some SS offerings).

Yea though - in general named clones will all be similar in a general sense to unnamed clones - usually though the named clone has qualities which make it more desirable. I've made an effort to cull out the strains in my own garden which do not possess strength of character and/or great beauty..

Edited August 21, 2013 by nitrogen

[Auxin]

One spot names come in useful is in shortening things.

Selective breeding was mentioned, at some point names would get too cumbersome.

Say you were going to do further breeding work with a cactus that was already called...

(((SS02 X SS01) F2 x Trichocereus sp. 'Kimuras Giant') X (SS01 X Trichocereus bridgesii 'Psycho0')) F2 forma monstrosa Clone F

When writing plant labels it would be far easier to call it 'Spiky Bob'

[Glass Roots]

At this point we're still in the infancy of selective breeding - most all named clones are first generation, wild, or presumably older-world plants that have been growing for quite sometime...

We're getting some breeding going with the progeny of previous crosses though, now that those crosses are getting to maturity - takes several years with trichos before they will flower. But, we're now seeing some now - like naja naja said we really ought to name them for sake of keeping track too - I crossed some seedlings at this point - two types of cuzcoensis, an SS02 x pachanoi, and an ecuadorian pachanoi - really ought to name them but it hasn't been an issue because those same hybrids haven't to my knowledge been crossed by others yet. I have named the cuzcoensis' (one is "blonde" and one is "brunette") but I can't recal which was in which cross lol. And others who have crossed seedlings have not been naming the seedling either (Zelly's and Mitosis's SS02 x SS01, Melvin's T. Macrogonus "Icaros", and some SS offerings).

Yea though - in general named clones will all be similar in a general sense to unnamed clones - usually though the named clone has qualities which make it more desirable. I've made an effort to cull out the strains in my own garden which do not possess strength of character and/or great beauty..

When it comes to shortening the amount of time needed to mature each generation, couldn't you graft to speed up the process? Wouldn't you also be able to induce flowering sooner by changing the nutrients given to the cacti? I think regardless if you used either of these methods or both simultaneously this shouldn't affect your ability to deduce which cacti carry the desired traits you are looking for. If it comes down to a matter of not knowing how fast the cactus would grow on it's own roots, I would imagine that by degrafting it onto it's own roots after you've gotten it through it's first year or so that you would be able to see it's growth speed after being on it's roots for about a year (not including the dormant period of no roots)?

One spot names come in useful is in shortening things.

Selective breeding was mentioned, at some point names would get too cumbersome.

Say you were going to do further breeding work with a cactus that was already called...

(((SS02 X SS01) F2 x Trichocereus sp. 'Kimuras Giant') X (SS01 X Trichocereus bridgesii 'Psycho0')) F2 forma monstrosa Clone F

When writing plant labels it would be far easier to call it 'Spiky Bob'

That makes sense. I would imagine that the heritage would just be recorded somewhere else (notebook, file, etc,)? A shortened name makes much sense for a label, but I would hope one wouldn't just switch from the known history of the cactus to the new name leaving a mystery of it's predecessors.

Edited August 21, 2013 by Glass Roots

[Auxin]

Thats where forums like this help ;)

couldn't you graft to speed up the process?

People do that, its becomming a common thing for people to graft seedlings to pereskiopsis to skip a year. Some times pups are grafted to more mature cacti, tho I've never seen the graft go to flower in peoples pics. Theres a hint on one of the threads here that H. jusbertii stock increases flowering propensity, although I dont know if that was meant to say it speeds the juvinile to mature phase transition, which is whats really needed.

Wouldn't you also be able to induce flowering sooner by changing the nutrients given to the cacti?

In regards to the columnars I've seen oddly little work done in this regard. Soil composition would be far more important, I believe, and there too I've seen little evidence of organized and systematic experimentation. Its an open field.

I think regardless if you used either of these methods or both simultaneously this shouldn't affect your ability to deduce which cacti carry the desired traits you are looking for.

Dont always think of breeding as single plants, think of them as groups and multiple coexisting generations.

On an F1 (first generation of a cross) the groups are fairly homogenous and you could speed several plants along and even get their offspring started while growing some slow to see natural character.

F2 is an explosion of diversity in wide crosses, but you could split each cactus in half and grow half fast, get F3 seeds from them, get them growing, and when you know what F2's were the best just massacre the F3 progeny from all the rest.

Breeding is often an issue of complex record keeping and exploiting tricks to speed things along, as well as killing thousands of good plants to focus on the great ones.

[Glass Roots]

Since the current varieties haven't been really been bred true, does this mean that starting off the F1's are going to have a major diversity, and even more so in F2? If so, would it be worthwhile to backcross both the potential mother and father so you have a consistent F1 result before moving on to F2, F3, etc.?

Edited August 22, 2013 by Glass Roots

[Auxin]

It depends totally on the breeding group the prospective parents came out of.

Some homogenous populations will give consistent, homogenous offspring. Others, not so much. Thats why I was careful to specify 'wide' crosses. An F2 from very similar bridgesii whos parents were all bridgesii will have very little variation and really arent hybrids. Throw one other grandparent in and there will be variation. But either way if you cross a bridgesii with a macrogonus the F1's will be far more homogenous than the F2's

Your right its a complicated thing and when getting new blood lines we will rarely know the parentage going back several generations, but a lot can be worked out just by observation and from there it can just be played as it comes.

[Glass Roots]

An F2 from very similar bridgesii whos parents were all bridgesii will have very little variation and really arent hybrids.

Are you saying that you can't make changes without hybrids? As an example, couldn't you selectively breed similar bridgesii to gain overall size in girth/ribs by continuously choosing those offspring of each generation that is slightly larger? The idea of doing it this way would be to retain all of the other "bridgesii" traits you are in favor of while choosing offspring that are progressively bigger in size?

If this isn't possible, does that mean that a certain variety has very strict parameters on size, spines, chemical, etc., that can only be altered by crossing? I didn't think this was the case.

Edited August 22, 2013 by Glass Roots

[Stillman]

when out crossing you allow for "better" genes but also the possibility of weaker genes. There is always a potential risk of producing unwanted traits in progeny. Trichocereus are a bit of a grey example as they are prolific hybridisers naturally. I think if your interested in this maybe google some basic plant breeding genetic pages. Have a look at a guy called Gregor Mendel and his 3:1 ratio he had alot of good ideas which are simple and mostly relevant.

[Stillman]

"does that mean that a certain variety has very strict parameters on size, spines, chemical, etc., that can only be altered by crossing? I didn't think this was the case."

^ this is what allows us to define a species.

[Glass Roots]

when out crossing you allow for "better" genes but also the possibility of weaker genes. There is always a potential risk of producing unwanted traits in progeny. Trichocereus are a bit of a grey example as they are prolific hybridisers naturally. I think if your interested in this maybe google some basic plant breeding genetic pages. Have a look at a guy called Gregor Mendel and his 3:1 ratio he had alot of good ideas which are simple and mostly relevant.

I've looked over Mendel's work on genetics with pea's.

"does that mean that a certain variety has very strict parameters on size, spines, chemical, etc., that can only be altered by crossing? I didn't think this was the case."

^ this is what allows us to define a species.

I say this as in essentially changing a species (but most would just say it's a cultivar/breed) of a species. The reason why I thought that these were traits that could be changed was because by selective breeding, you can essentially pull the strings of evolution. By artificial selection of dogs for example, we are essentially speeding up the process of natural selection and manipulating the dogs by choosing the traits we want instead of the traits they need to survive. .

A good example is that if we were to see the fossils of all of the distinctly different breeds of dogs without knowing they were artificially bred that way, we would consider them different species. What I'm trying to say is, is that just because a species has certain parameters, it shouldn't mean that by selective breeding we could not break through these parameters?

So like the example of the bridegsii I gave, with my humbly little understanding of genetics, it would seem possible to create cacti with all of the bridegsii traits, except say it is twice the size. If I don't misunderstand evolution (which I very well may ), to say this isn't possible is to say it isn't possible for species to evolve in the wild?

Edited August 22, 2013 by Glass Roots

[cactuscarl]

But to breed a big dog you can't cross two small dogs over and over through generations, you'll still have small dogs. You'd had to add the genes of a larger dog to get more size. Then if the small dogs traits are what your after then you'd cross back selecting larger dogs with your desired traits.

It's probably possible to get slightly larger bridgessi the way your describing but it'll probably take many many generations and also there would be no way of telling whether it's a throw back from a naturally hybridised plant.

[Glass Roots]

But to breed a big dog you can't cross two small dogs over and over through generations, you'll still have small dogs. You'd had to add the genes of a larger dog to get more size. Then if the small dogs traits are what your after then you'd cross back selecting larger dogs with your desired traits.

It's probably possible to get slightly larger bridgessi the way your describing but it'll probably take many many generations and also there would be no way of telling whether it's a throw back from a naturally hybridised plant.

This makes sense, even though there were never tiny dogs to mate with the larger dogs they had at the time to make the now toy sized breeds (other side of the coin).

So are you saying it's possible to the combine a smaller variety with an appealing chemistry with a larger variety with an unappealing one, then take the larger offspring and backcross them until you had the same chemical make up of the original smaller variety? Sounds nice.

Edited August 23, 2013 by Glass Roots

[Auxin]

Yes, applying selection pressure will let you derive novel plants. It just takes longer.

Cacti are like wolves, they have lots of capacity for adaptation because without that they would have gone extinct.

But breeding within a homogenous selection of one species is still a slow thing, depending on the selection pressure you apply.

Take chilli peppers (easier to visualize) I once met a guy who went to the caribbean and saw a poor little granny with a chilli pepper stall. She grew peppers and sold the best to make a few coin, consequently she saved the smallest peppers for seed. Her scotch bonnet peppers were the size of cherries. The guy bought a couple, got home, and for 6 or 7 generations saved seeds just from the plants that made the biggest peppers. He ended up with scotch bonnets larger than golf balls.

A case of intentionally reversing a previous unintentional selection pressure.

You can also toss in new pressures. In 'horizontal breeding' for disease resistance the breeder chooses a group of plants more prone to the disease to make sure there isnt some biochemically simple resistance mechanism in them, then that poor genetic pool is bred for resistance to the disease. Again, in 7 or so generations a more biologically complex (and harder for the disease to circumvent) mode of resistance can be seen emerging from the pool.

Its said that, in general, a animal species can be bred into domestication in as little as 20 generations by a skilled breeder.

This is the slower type of breeding, arguably what we will eventually see done in cacti. It just takes time to expose and select new traits.

Hybrids (either within, or across species) are like shortcuts to greater diversity from which a breeder could select.

Cross a red jalapeno with a yellow bell pepper and Bam! you'd get a larger red jalapeno with a bit less heat and a bit less of the jalapeno odor.

But if you wanted to breed for specific traits in a new stabilized cultivar line it would take a minimum of 7 generations in which you'd see many traits emerge or hide.

(I mostly breed peppers, can you tell )

So yes, theres many possible routes in breeding, much of a breeders skill is simply learning to know which route to take, and learning how to interpret what is seen along the way.

Edited August 23, 2013 by Auxin

[Glass Roots]

Thanks for all of your input, you've definitely cleared a couple things up for me.

[cactuscarl]

So are you saying it's possible to the combine a smaller variety with an appealing chemistry with a larger variety with an unappealing one, then take the larger offspring and backcross them until you had the same chemical make up of the original smaller variety? Sounds nice.

yes, I mean its not as simple as that but that is the basic idea of cross breeding to get one desirable trait from one plant and cross it with another with desirable traits and HOPEFULLY you end up with a plant with both desirable traits

[zelly]

When it comes to shortening the amount of time needed to mature each generation, couldn't you graft to speed up the process? Wouldn't you also be able to induce flowering sooner by changing the nutrients given to the cacti? I think regardless if you used either of these methods or both simultaneously this shouldn't affect your ability to deduce which cacti carry the desired traits you are looking for.

I'll tell you a real, & huge problem with selective breeding is coaxing & convincing certain plants to produce flower buds that mature to the point of actually flowering. And hopefully they flower at or near the same time as the other plants you want to selectively breed them with.

IMHO, at this point in time 'selective tricho breeding' means crossing those plants that flower near simultaneously with each other.

Also, IMHO, nutrients and or lack there of play almost no part in the flowering process of columnar trich's, although I do believe I've come across something that stimulates what I would call 'aerole development processes'. Theoretically every aerole can produce either a flower bud or a new pup, and I'm seeing an uncharacteristic proliferation of new pups on certain plants. Pupping where pupping typically does not occur.

Consider a plot of ground containing many different fully mature species and or clones. All get the same sunlight, the same watering, the same nutrient applications; all experience the exact same growing conditions. What makes one flower profusely one year and absolutely zilch the next year?

Why has one plant never produced a flower bud and lower branch cuttings of that same plant left in full sun for three months not only flowered but have set fruit after being crossed? Did they perceive they were nearing extinction & thus made an effort at survival by flowering?

So are you saying it's possible to the combine a smaller variety with an appealing chemistry with a larger variety with an unappealing one, then take the larger offspring and backcross them until you had the same chemical make up of the original smaller variety?

Appealing chemistry or not, this year I've crossed a variegated grandiflorus with stunning red flowers with an extremely prolific & mature white flowered validus. 'Selection' being based solely on what was flowering at the same time, and with the intent to produce a red or pink or multicolored columnar plant flower.

Unfortunately for me, I will probably be six feet under long before the columnar progeny of this cross reaches sufficient maturity to flower and or set seed.