On 17 Aug 2009, at 12:25, Kenneth Hixson wrote: > . . . Open Pollinated (OP) seed to some people is worthless. Luther Burbank, the "great American plant breeder" seems in historical retrospect to have been either a con man or hopelessly naive, but his methods, as documented in the weird multi-volume "Harvest of the Years", are worth mentioning. His practice was to acquire specimens of as many different species as he could in a plant group he was interested in, then interplant these and let the bees do the work. From the seed he would grow a second generation and from those select only the plants that deviated from the norm the most, then use those as the basis for further generations. All open-pollinated seed. One can argue back "so what, his methods yielded little of significance", but it's not my fight. -- Rodger Whitlock Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Maritime Zone 8, a cool Mediterranean climate on beautiful Vancouver Island http://maps.google.ca/maps/…