Registered Cross?

[Korxi]

Actually, I have no idea I'm kinda new at all this. But it would make sence that only one registration was permitted since they genetically probably would be similar (I guess?). In that case I guess you should allways do the cross both ways and only register the best of the two plants - it sure would be awfull to do the reverse cross later and find out that the offspring here was far superior..

We'll have to wait for the more enlightened to give us a certain answer

Christian

[Piper]

Palito is correct. Regardless of which parent was the pod parent on the registered cross, that pair of parents will carry the registered name when crossed in either direction.

It's too bad there's no way to designate the pod parent (technically the first parent listed should be the pod parent, but I never trust that practice has been followed.) The reverse cross can be surprisingly different, since the pod parent has considerably more influence on the resulting flowers.

McJulie

[Korxi]

Would the plants of a cross and the reversed cross then be genetically distinguishable?

[Piper]

The offspring of two parents will always carry some combination of the genes of both parents. But "some" is the operative word.

In any pairing of gametes this is cellular sex speak (not usually heard on the first date) - we've already established how hot current temps are - try not to get two steamed up! the specific genes that each parent contributes to the offspring will vary. That's why children are different.

The same variation we witness with kids occurs with orchids. The difference is, with orchids the dad can get pregnant. Okay, fellows, I'll pause now so you can wipe the coffee off your keyboards. It's not a pleasant thought, but that's the way it is - ain't you glad you're not a plant!

Most orchids don't actually have pre-assigned sexes as humans do. They're capable of playing either role. The plant that contributes the pollen is Dad, and the one that carries the seed pod is Mom. A single plant can in fact do both. Which makes for wickedly confusing Mother's Days and Father's Days.

So Christian, the answer to your question is that every seedling from any seed-grown cross is genetically different from any other seedling in the same pod. Think fraternal twins - I think...I'm nor sure how plant embryo mitosis differs from human embryo mitosis.

But certainly crosses and reverse crosses are very much distinguishable genetically, as are the different seedlings from a specific seed-grown cross.

Note: A clone of a plant should be a genetic duplicate, but even then small genetic changes can occur.

McTiredFromThinkingTooHard

[Korxi]

Let's see if I got it right:
What this means is that you can never determine which way a cross was made, not even if you have the seedling, pollen and seed parents, since they are able to "swing both ways" so to speak ??