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breeding Which plant is the mother in a cross?

austin87

austin87

Say I were to cross a bhut X cayenne (vs cayenne X bhut) - in the first example the bhut X cayenne would indicate that the bhut was the mother plant, and pollinated with a flower from a cayenne plant, right?

Also, what are the expected differences in choosing one plant as the mother vs the other? For example in a capsicum and annum cross, are the offspring plant more likely to similar to the mother? Say you want multiple pods per node (a chinense trait) vs one pod per node (an annum trait)... Would it make more sense to have the chinense be the mother or would it not matter?
 
austin87 said:
Say I were to cross a bhut X cayenne (vs cayenne X bhut) - in the first example the bhut X cayenne would indicate that the bhut was the mother plant, and pollinated with a flower from a cayenne plant, right?

Also, what are the expected differences in choosing one plant as the mother vs the other? For example in a capsicum and annum cross, are the offspring plant more likely to similar to the mother? Say you want multiple pods per node (a chinense trait) vs one pod per node (an annum trait)... Would it make more sense to have the chinense be the mother or would it not matter?
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Shouldn't matter which one is the mother or father as far as I'm aware because they're hermaphroditic plants and their pollen and eggs contain the same genes. 
If the parents are stable varieties, they are said to be homozygous, either completely dominant (RR for example) or completely recessive (rr as an example).
When you cross a chinense and an annuum (both stable in this example) the 1st generation of plants will tell you if the "multi-flower per node" gene is recessive or not since it is a hybrid notated as Rr.  If it is recessive it will not show, if dominate it almost certainly will.  To select for this, or practically any trait, you have to do the time consuming task of growing out the seeds.  When you cross the first generation with itself, you can expect 75% of the seeds to have the dominate trait whether it be color  or what not and 25% to have the recessive trait.  Then you get into things like co-dominance with certain genes and it gets kinda complicated.  This part is very important also, recessive genes WILL NOT show in the first generation, only the second and after because a hybrid always displays the dominant genes of either variety you're growing.
 
 
tl:dr
 
Shouldn't matter which is the father or the mother, they have male and female parts that contain the same genetic information in the pollen and eggs.  
However, the one with the shorter fruit time will probably get you seeds faster which is a big advantage so I'd recommend using it as the mother but plants that supply you with more seeds allow a bigger pool for you to pick traits.
 
 
 
 
I think Wicked Mike is right by the way.
 
solid7 said:
The mother plant is the one with the flowers on it.  It's the one that gets pollinated.
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nzchili said:
yep, you take the sperm (pollen) from the male plant, and apply it into the females flower
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Yep, I understand this part, thanks! Was more interested in how to tell which plant was the mother if a seed vendor listed "Bahamian goat X Moruga" and as Wicked Mike said, it would be the Bahamian goat in this case.
 
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