From: samodena@csemail.cropsci.ncsu.edu (S. A. Modena)
Subject: Re: plant phys use in breeding
Organization: Crop Science Dept., NCSU, Raleigh, NC 27695-7620
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 04:33:37 GMT

In article <1992Sep9.160616.8067@u.washington.edu> toby@milton.u.washington.edu (Toby Bradshaw) writes:
>>Steve Modena:
>>I'm not impressed that RFLP analyses or RAPD's are the solution to
>>much....and I've said so previously in this forum.
>
>The solution to marker aided selection?  Have a talk with
>Ron Sederoff in your forestry department.  They've already

Keith Robison made a similar recommendation months ago.  
Whooten in that lab has a BitNet account and knows about bionet.
My email to them has not been treated with a courtesy of a reply.  ;^)

What one "knows" via propaganda versus what one hears in the 
hallways is often quite a contrast.  I stand on my skepticism.
No one better than Sederoff's lab to explain specifics to
enquiring minds.

Ron Sederoff's telephone number is:  1-919-515-7800 and no email
address listed in the 1991-92 Campus Telephone Directory.  Go ahead:
call them and invite them to engage.

>found a RAPD linked to the "nectarine" phenotype in peach.

I sat in a seminar here a month ago and the visiting-scientist
said that RAPDs are good for the particular set of plants
being investigated.  Switch the genetic composition of the
plants under investigation and you can throw your RAPDs primers
away and start the search over......I don't do this stuff, I just
watch the one who do.

>Since it's a recessive, and cannot be ascertained until
>maturity, early selection could be done at the seedling
>stage for about a dime per tree.

As I conceded to Keith, breeding trees and breeding maize is
none-to-similar.  Well, actually, breeding wheat is non-to-similar
to breeding maize.

The cytogenetic techniques that have stood the wheat people well
have gone NOWHERE in maize.

>
>This is a small, perhaps trivial use of markers.  What they'll
>really be used for is to clone relevant QTLs for many traits,
>and work from there by breeding or biotech.

So, short of giving out Pioneer's secrets, I'd love to hear from
someone online who can be specific about a specific crop.  I have
a very recent dissertation in hand on earliness QTLs via RFLP
analysis.  That one, like a couple of others on the shelf here
at Hill Library, do not appear to be earth shattering.  The thesis
work is *good* and my conclusion is the technique is not *yet*
earth shattering.

Anyone online able to get very specific?

>
>>Again it's
>>the numbers: what does it cost to do the gels, what are the start up
>>costs, and picking probes (or primers, in the case of RAPDs) is a
>>problem in maize (maybe it's easy in alfalpha or whatever).
>
>Similar complaints were made about hybrid seed corn.  
>........
>OP corn used to be traditional, too, and costs less than controlled
>crosses.  It's the return on investment that counts, not just the
>up-front costs.

That's not exactly correct: it's the return on investment IN THE FACE OF
up-front costs, don't you think?  

When I took Experimental Design at Missouri, Gary Krause said: "You didn't
need Statistics to see what hybrid corn meant.  40% yield increment
right across the board needs no statistics.  On the other hand, you
may need very good statistical evaluation to 'prove' a 1% yield
increment.

So...what is the likely return on investment in maize breeding *today*
(not 1938) when breeders are proud of the *steady* 1%-per-year
progress that has been the hallmark of maize genetic improvement over
the last 30 years?  What does RFLP breeding promise?  Be specific.
What is the return on investment?  What has been the progress on
achieving a saturation RFLP marker map? What are the problems?
Why did the Genetics Institute get out of the saturation marker game?

You were much more detailed about the flight worthiness of the F-15
than about commercial or scientific progress with RFLP-based breeding. :^)

>
>>Well, in the sense that an F-15 has
>>computers that read lots of sensors and accelerometers and adjusts
>>and would and do crash forthwith when those computers go to "sleep."
>
>Don't believe everything you read.  The F-15 is statically stable,
>with the CG forward of the CL.  The X-29 is statically unstable,
>though, and can't be hand flown.

Well, why get exotic:  the F-111 is a killer and *never* was a stable
aircraft.  And the old Star Fighters did none-too-well in the
-electronically-over-loaded-mode the Luftwaffe had them in.

Some people swear by the F100 and others say it was unstable.

F-4 and SkyHawks are stable, which is why they are still being
*built* after *38* years of service.

And yes, I might have picked on the wrong aircraft: but are you speaking
of the F-15A which could do bat-flips or are you speaking of the overloaded
recent versions?  Do the Israelis fly "A"-like models or "E"-like models?

>
>>(Don't believe it?  Remember how the back-seater died in Top Gun?)
>
>I wouldn't cite Hollywood for my technical information :)  The

....and neither would I cite the Pentagon or the aircraft manufacturer.
Too many whistle blowers have shown what "fake" stats they put out.
When a helicopter goes to the Gulf and has it underbelly gun
JAM on 80% of the missions, the Pentagon calls it a "sucessful"
deployment.  Is this bionet.plnats, or what?  :^)

>F-14 supposedly spun in the wake turbulence of another aircraft.
>Spins are aerodynamically stable flight modes in many aircraft.
>Some spins are recoverable, some are not.  All fighter aircraft
>I know of (including the F-14) can be spun and recovered given

...check with your inside sources at General Dynamics
(or better, Boeing) and ask them about the F-111.....

....[ deleted an interesting commentary...]
>
>Toby Bradshaw
>Department of Biochemistry and College of Forest Resources
                                           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Are trees plants?  ;^)