I say we all order supplies and make this a open group project. Because i am confused on how to do it. I have large fig tree to do it with. Just would like help.

I just found this info on fig genetics and VERY INTERESTING!!! http://waynesword.palomar.edu/pljun99b.htm

Apparently, female fig is homozygous ga/ga recessive only! So when you make a synthetic cross using feminized pollen from a donor select cultivar, you get ga/ga pollen...ALL FEMALE! Use this pollen and cross onto another female ga/ga pistil and you get a new synthetic edible fig S1 hybrid that is female ga/ga....The fact you have this MULTI GENE sex system suggests fig sex expression is QUANTITATIVE BY NATURE or that the PHENOTYPIC EXPRESSION OF THE HERMIE CONDITION IN FIG IN 'REGULATED OR MODIFIED' BY SUITES OF GENES RESULTING IN DIFFERENT PHENOTYPIC SEX EXPRESSIONS IN FIG WITH THE GA/ga genetic system.

So when you cross a ga/ga feminized pollen with a ga/ga female select fig cultivar, I expect to get 100% ga/ga synthetic hybrid and 100% of the progeny will be common edible fig! I cannot see how you would get San Pedro and the other type of fig when you are making a synthetic hybrid using ga/ga pollen?

I would have to read the paper from Japan, but my guess is that when they make a S1 cross using ga/ga feminized pollen, they get 100% edible common fig and a blending of the two female select cultivars used in the synthetic cross!

When those pistillate hermaphrodite fig that produce the occasional viable seed self, you get a genetic copy of ga/ga female as the plant selfed itself. You are not going to get any males, no San Pedro and no Smyrna fig! You get all genetic copies of the mother! So why when you take ga/ga 'feminized' pollen and use it in a cross on a different ga/ga edible fig (not Desert King) and get 1/3, 1/3, 1/3??? It does not make sense!

When making a synthetic S1 cross using 'feminized' ga/ga pollen, I EXPECT 100% female common edible fig all of pretty good quality, just a blending of the two superior female phenos ga/ga.....The only minor differences should be the minor amount of soma clonal variation that takes place during genetic recombination during meiosis. However there is very little crossing over during meiosis in plants and it usually just results in differences in yield. But his being said, the Japanese are using this simple technique for a reason...IT WORKS!!! If it works....ALL FIG ARE HERMAPHRODITE! Go back to this:

Staminate male(GA/ga..GA/GA??)-----> Staminate hermie(GA/ga...GA/GA??)------>Hermie(GA/ga)<-----Pistillate hermie(ga/ga)<-------Pistillate(ga/ga)

If you can ignore 3 out of the 5 and use pistillate hermie ga/ga and pistillate ga/ga in synthetic crosses using feminized ga/ga pollen....why do anything else? Unless were do not have enough landrace fig to work with and that appears not to be the case!

So again, although fig has what looks to be a two gene system for sex determination GA/ga system...Looking at the fig phenotypes and what we see, suggests there is some quantitative genetic 'REGULATION' of this two gene system....

Again, because we see huge phenotypic differences across fig in terms of flower production and now showing that GA3 can be used to induce male flowers.....This suggests that yeah there are two genes, but their phenotypic 'EXPRESSION' appears to be modified by quantitative genetic mechanisms! Hermaphrodite condition most-likely has some form of quantitative genetic regulation of phenotype expression due to the 'regulation of expression' of those two genes!

That is why we are seeing so much variation in sex expression in fig and GA3 works making feminized pollen....FIGS ARE ALL HERMIE WITH A GA/ga two gene sex expression that is 'modified' through quantitative genetic regulator genes....There are most-likely 'suites of genes' that regulate the expression of the GA/ga genes resulting in varied phenos.....And this is what we are seeing in fig!

Those landrace pistillate hermaphrodite (ga/ga) fig are VALUABLE BREEDING TOOLS! Especially now that it looks like GA3 can be used on the breba to get feminized (ga/ga) pollen and make synthetic S1 hybrids of superior female cultivars....Man, you fig breeders have about 15 years of catching to do to catch up to the 'stoner' Cannabis breeders and this 'feminized seed' thing!...:)

Hey, but figs are legal in all 50 states, so even if it takes 5 years to see the results, THERE SHOULD BE A LOT OF YOU DOING THIS EASY GA3 manipulation and in 5 to 10 years, decentralized fig breeding can be 'SHOWCASE BREEDING PROGRAM' just like feminized Cannabis seed breeding is right now! Giddy up! I want in-expensive S1 hybrid fig seeds please!...:)

After reading the genetics of fig in that link....it's QUANTITATIVE in nature! QUANTITATIVE GENETICISTS DON'T WORK ON SINGLE GENE TRAITS. IF IT IS 'SINGLE GENE', IT'S NOT QUANTITATIVE! Hey, FIG IS TWO GENE GA/ga, in which the 'phenotypic expression' of the GA/ga sexual phenotype regulated by other unknown genes that modify the GA/ga expression resulting in a wide range of GA/GA, GA/ga and ga/ga phenotypes we see.

Two gene is QUANTITATIVE THERE FIG BREEDERS! This makes fig a 'COMPLEX BREEDING SYSTEM' and ALL ARE HERMIE, no matter what you have been told prior! All female and all male plants are HERMIES!!! Go get some GA3 and I WILL SHOW YOU!!! Whether they produce male flowers or not or whether some stress like drought, light or GA3 chemical...SO? THEY ARE ALL HERMIES ON THAT BELL CURVE!!! THAT MEANS WITH COMPLEX BREEDING SYSTEM AND THE FACT THERE ARE FIG PISTILLATE HERMAPHRODITES OPENS UP HUGE, NEW BREEDING PROJECTS THAT COULD NEVER BE DONE IF IT WERE NOT FOR THE FACT THAT ALL FIG ARE HERMIES ON THAT HERMIE BELL CURVE!!! I GIVE YOU FIG BREEDERS 10 YEARS TO CATCH UP TO THE 'STONER' CANNABIS BREEDERS....MAN, THEY ARE SHOWING YOU PEOPLE UP! Just friendly 'ribbing' there fig breeders....You can catch up to the stoner Cannabis breeders and do some good stuff using GA3 and get some good results.

congatom, you are still missing one (at least) piece of the puzzle. In order to produce fruit without the fig wasp, the "female" tree also needs the gene for presistance.

http://waynesword.palomar.edu/arbimg10.htm#persistent

However, "P is "Egg Lethal" & Cannot Be in Egg Heterozygous P+ Progeny Not Possible". So you can produce all female trees, but they will only fruit where the wasp lives (only parts of CA in USA as far as I know).

You not getting the genetics of this persistance. Persistance is sex linked and when you use a male/female system of breeding, the male 'CONFERS' that DNA TO THE PROGENY! IT 'CONFERS' IT TO THE FEMALE PROGENY SO 'P' IS IN THERE!!! IT WILL PASS IN A gaP/gaP feminized pollen onto a gaP/gaP female select cultivar fig. Look at what I am saying and look at the genetics I gave you...Persistance WILL PASS in a gaP/gaP x gaP/gaP synthetic hybrid cross....NEXT!

Come on KEEP THEM COMING THERE FIG BREEDERS...I GOT YA!!! Just ribbing...:)

Andy I thought it would work like this.

P+ (pollen) x P+ (egg) = PP (dies) P+, +P (dies), ++

When I look at this: Put in the feminized pollen P+....They leave it out in a NORMAL cross and that is fine....THIS IS NOT A NORMAL CROSS....THE POLLEN IS gaP/gaP. There is no gaP/gaP pollen in a pistillate hermie or pure pistillate hermie in fig...Look at the chart...but that is for female x male cross and PERSISTANCE should pass as we have synthetic gaP/gaP viable 'feminized' pollen.

According to the above chart, when you add in the FEMINIZED POLLEN gaP/gaP...PERSISTANCE WILL PASS.....AGAIN, THIS IS 'FEMINIZED POLLEN WITH THE GENETICS gaP/gaP and VIABLE! Cross this on to female cultivar gaP/gaP and what do you get? NEXT!

Again the Japanese are using GA3 BECAUSE IT WORKS IN CREATING S1 fig hybrids! What do you get when you cross gaP+/gaP+ x gaP+/gaP+(feminized viable pollen)? You get gaP+/gaP+ female plants 100% across the board! Look at the genetics I just wrote down...IT IS CORRECT and REALIZE that feminized gaP+/gaP+ pollen is VIABLE! BOY, THAT OPENS LOTS OF S1 HYBRID BREEDING POSSIBLITIES!

Just remember on the above chart the pollen is not coming from a male Caprifig BUT A FEMALE COMMON FIG SELECT CULTIVAR PURE PISTILLATE HERMIE THAT IS FORCED INTO CREATING MALE SEX ORGANS WITH gaP+/gaP+ viable pollen...which most landrace fig can make naturally as they are all pistillate hermies pure pistillate hermies that can make feminized viable pollen....Again, if they have a paper on this in Japan, IT WORKS OR THEY WOULD NOT HAVE PUBLISHED! And if it is GA3, I KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING AS I AM AN EXPERT ON QUANTITATIVE GENETIC BREEDING SYSTEMS IN HERMAPHRODITE PLANTS...Cannabis, hop and now looks like fig too...:)

I am using ALL the genetics the fig breeders talk about.. I just say get rid of 'MULE FLOWER'.. that is just WRONG and understand that fig is not Gynodioecious! That is just a BAD TERM TO USE IN FIG!!! FIG ARE HERMIES ACROSS THE BOARD!!! The ONLY REASON the 'Hermaphrodite Bell Curve' has been shifted in common fig is because of intervention! I bet if you look at wild fig populations the breeding system looks exactly like the Hermaphrodite Bell Curve' I showed you prior with the majority of plants being straight up Hermie and pure pistillate hermies and pure staminate hermies as outliers. It is just with selection that the natural 'Hermaphrodite Bell Curve' has been shifted in fig, Cannabis and hop to favor the pistillate hermaphrodites and pure pistillate hermies....

Pure staminate Hermie (GAP/gaP)---->Staminate Hermie(GAP/gaP)----->Hermie(GAP/gaP)<-----Pistillate Hermie(gaP/gaP)<------Pure Pistillate Hermie(gaP/gaP)

The above would be WILD POPULATIONS OF CANNBIS, HOP AND PROBABLY FIG TOO! Selection has altered the distribution as we IGNORE HERMIES in Cannabis and hop and and concentrate on the pistillate hermie and pure pistillate hermie plants....same for fig.....But my guess would be, go out in the wild and you will find the about disttribution in wild fig with most plants being straight up hermie and fewer staminate hermies and even fewer pure staminate hermies and same goes for the pistillate side of the bell curve.....The above is a wild population 'NORMAL DISTRIBUTION'...bell curve...like in grade school...WHERE AM I ON THE CURVE? We all know about that...but this hermie bell curve in Cannabis, hop and now looks like fig has been altered/shifted by selection, but the above genetic breeding system and distribution appears to be going on in fig too! That is all I am saying and you can take fig out of the FIG BREEDING DARK AGES with just a little more solid information about what looks to be going on in fig....

Again, I do not see ANYTHING in the genetics of feminized pollen production that would raise red flags and tell me this S1 hybrid breeding using GA3 on fig breba would not work! If they wrote a paper about it in Japan and published it...THE TECHNIQUE PROBABLY WORKS!!! I am JUST FILLING ALL YOU FIG BREEDERS AND 'POTENTIAL' FIG BREEDER IN ABOUT WHAT LOOKS TO BE GOING ON IN FIG USING PUBLISHED INFORMATION ON FIG GENETICS TO BACK ME UP ALONG WITH INFORMATION ON HERMIE AND DIOECIOUS CONDITION IN PLANTS AND HOW THAT RELATES TO QUANTITATIVE GENETIC BREEDING SYSTEMS IN THESE PLANTS!

Oh, AND ALTHOUGH I USE SOME FANCY SCIENCE WORDS...THIS IS SIMPLE!!!! STONERS ARE DOING THIS IN CANNABIS...COME ON!!! YOU PEOPLE HAD ALL THE INFORMATION BUT AGAIN, WERE NOT CONNECTING THE DOTS CORRECTLY AND I DECIDED YOU NEEDED TO BE FILLED IN TO GET YOU OUT OF THE 'FIG BREEDING DARK AGES' AND GET IT TO THE STATUS EQUAL TO THAT OF 'FEMINIZED SEED PRODUCTION' IN CANNABIS....

The biggest reason why I am confident this will work and persistance will not be an issue is in the landrace natural pistillate hermie fig that produce the occasional viable seed! The offspring IS A NEAR CLONE OF THE MOTHER WITH JUST A LITTLE SOMA CLONAL VARIATION IN THE QUANTITATIVE GENETICS OF THE OFFSPRING. So, you get the same taste, but STRENGTH MAY VARY, YIELD MAY VARY....Things like that...but the amount of variation will vary...:) Some S1 crosses might yield CLONE-LIKE RESULTS!!! It happens in Cannabis!

So when a S1 hybrid cross gaP+/gaP+ x gaP+/gaP+, a cross that 'NORMALLY' would never happen, gives you gaP+/gaP+ offspring 100%. What's not to like?

The only question I have is: Is the feminized pollen gaP+/gaP+ viable? But given what goes on in landrace fig naturally producing feminized all female seed from all female pollen, my guess is, the Japanese technique works and YOU GOT THE GA3 concentration now people!!! Someone must have that paper and I am just filling you on a few things by giving you some information you clearly know nothing about and connecting some dots for fig breeders...thats all....

Again, looking at the genetics of 'FEMINIZED POLLEN' gaP+/gaP+ and VIABLE (most-likely)....MY GOSH...THE FUN THINGS FIG BREEDERS CAN DO WITH THIS INFO!!!! GA3 is a natural plant hormone, by the way, for those who do not know. It can just do some funky things in plants at high concentrations relative to normal concentrations in plant cells. Someone asked about GA3 and root formation...NO...Rooting compounds are Auxins IAA and whatnot and some Cytokinins for cell division I think...go look a bottle of Olivia's rooting gel.....

Oops, the Caprfig is P and +, but that does not change what I said...P IS EGG LETHAL AND NOT SPERM LETHAL!!! FEMINIZED POLLEN IS VIABLE AND PERSISTENT AND ALL FEMALE!!!!

I showed the genetics as gaP+/gaP+ when it should be gaP/ga+ viable feminized pollen, right? Yeah, looking at the chart above the alleles persistence are P and + and egg lethal, but not sperm lethal...So again feminized pollen (sperm) NOT LETHAL AND WE SHOULD BE OK!

Yeah, so the P allele is egg lethal...the FEMALE CULTIVAR HAS THE P ALLELE AND THOSE EGGS DIE!!! SO??? WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH CHEMICALLY INDUCING 'FEMINIZED' gaP/ga+ pollen WHICH IS NOT LETHAL...OH AND VIABLE???

The P allele is in the female fig, but those eggs die and it is never passed...SO? What does that have to do with GA3 induction of male flower structures in the pistillate hermie or pure pistillate hermie prized fig landrace cultivar for viable gaP/ga+ feminized pollen for S1 hybrid prooduction? THE P ALLELE IS EGG LETHAL AND NOT SPERM LETHAL...EVEN 'FEMINIZED SPERM' WITH THE P ALLELE...HOW ABOUT THAT?...:)

Also, someone might have already figured this one out....

When you cross gaP/ga+ x gaP/ga+ you get 25% gaP/gaP, 50% gaP/ga+ and 25 ga+/ga+....So, 25% would have just P allele and they would die as they would all be egg lethal.....So, you are left with 2/3 persistant female S1 hybrids and 1/3 non-persistant....still, looking at the numbers....2/3 persistance is pretty good.

So when a gaP/ga+ persistant fig female cultivar is selfed, 25% of the seed die and the in the rest of the seed 2/3 are persistant and 1/3 xx......That is WAY BETTER THAN 1 in 1000 or the space and numbers when using male caprifig! Again, no wonder the Japanese are doing this!

In an S1 cross, the 2/3 persistant will be a blending of the two choice female landrace cultivars you selected for the cross....You kinda know what you are getting!

So if these seeds are selfed landrace....2/3 should be persistant and be almost clones of the mother and 1/3 not persistant....BIG DEAL!!!!

Picture Information

Mouse over image to zoom

Have one to sell? Sell now

1/3 of my plants will be trash...no biggie...:) I think it is way cool that fig are actually all hermie and S1 crosses and inbreds can be made....Yeah, this is way cool...:)

What is also quite interesting is that by germinating these 'assured viable' fig seeds I will know if this is pistillate hermaphrodite or apomixis! If what is going on is pistillate hermaphrodite, I expect only 2/3 of the seed to be persistant. If it is apomixis, 100% should be persistant.....According to the Punnett Square genetics on persistance I read about.....If it is apomixis, 100% clonal looking plants....Pistillate hermie instead I get 2/3 persistant and 1/3 garbage....correct my genetics if you see a problem....I already corrected myself once with the Persistance alleles being P and +...Sorry about that, but I do not think I made any more mistakes....I cannot wait to germinate those fig seeds and see what I get....2/3 persistant or 100%??? I bet it is 2/3...:)

Still those odds on a selfing are pretty good....2/3 of the plants are near clones of the mother! Same will be true for S1 hybrids using feminized pollen...:)

Also, looking at the Cross Between Persistent Female Tree (P+) and Persistent Caprifig (P+): only 50% of the offspring are persistant! When you make an S1 cross, 2/3 of the offspring will be persistant! You get a greater degree of persistance in S1 hybrid and inbred line production and you get the blending of the two selected female parents...so you can kinda predict what you are getting in the resulting persistant offspring in the S1....

Hard to predict what you are going to get with male plants....Same goes in Cannabis...that's why they are doing all the feminized seed production for the stoners....

congatom, I love your passion and enthusiasm. If P is egg lethal, wouldn't apomixis give you 100% Caducous (non persistent) plants?

Apomixis gets around sexual gametes and uses regular 2N cells for the offspring and are a diploid clone of the mother...There is no 'true egg', but again, I am no expert on apomixis...I'll tell you that right now...But my guess is since apomixis does not involve an egg cell, the lethal thing may not come into play at all. I cannot comment further than this. However, when I get those seed from Canada....If I get 2/3 persistant fig offspring then I am most-likely correct that ALL FIG are hermies and the genetic system is gaP/ga+ over the hermie bell curve. If I get 50% persistant females, then I suspect this guy in Canada used a persistant caprifig and if its apomixis....100% persistant(???) Again, I have to look at apomixis more carefully, but I don't think it involves an egg, so no egg lethal and all persistant as it is a REAL CLONE of the mother??? So, for  me, next step is germinate those fig seeds and see the ratio of persistance. Is it 2 out of 3, 50/50, 100% or 0% (C. caprifig?? Those are like 1 in 1000 right ??)....So, IF this guy in Canda has VIABLE selfed fig seed from landrace....I suspect I will get 2/3 persistant....Anything else...especially 50/50 tells me he used a persistant caprifig and 100% out of my 24 seeds would be most-likely apomixis and think is HIGHLY UNLIKELY! Then I could get all garbage...HE USED A C. caprifig....Or he is selling non-fertile seeds...but he says they are fertile and I believe him...I bet I will get 2/3 persistant female fig that are close to clones of the mother!  1/3 no fruits...garbage.....

He assures they are fertile selfed seeds and I get money back if he is wrong...he's not wrong....He has a pistillate hermie landrace fig and is harvesting seeds and selling them....:)

Congatom,
Thank you very much for this info. Nice to see this forum being used like this again.
best,
mgg

Ok, I am done for today I think....That is enough for all you to think about....Again, I present things they way I do....It's like PULLING A BANDAID! If you don't like it...sorry....When I see errors in science....especially plant science and plant breeding...I will chime in and give you all an education if need be! I am just trying to help you people out as you have ALL THE INFORMATION, but you are not connecting the dots correctly and I'm an expert on hemphrodite plant complex breeding systems and I had chime in....get out the fig breeding 'dark ages' please....and don't take offense...I'm just trying to give you information that you obviously have no clue exists so that you can accelerate you breeding success and not have to worry about "We don't have Davis or LSU any more!" SO WHAT!!! Look at the stoner Cannabis breeders and what they have done using GA3! No excuses people....Giddy up....It is going to be a while before you fig breeders catch up to the stoners...:) Friendly ribbing people...:) I got to go...cheers all...:)

Here is some 'Old School' info on Cannabis and hermies it relates well to fig too!

From R.C. Clarke's Marijuana Botany.....

Sex - Attempts to breed offspring of only one sexual type have led to more misunderstanding than any other facet of Cannabis genetics. The discoveries of McPhee (1925) and Schaffner (1928) showed that pure sexual type and hermaphrodite conditions are inherited and that the percentage of sexual types could be altered by crossing with certain hermaphrodites. Since then it has generally been assumed by researchers and breeders that a cross between ANY unselected hermaphrodite plant and a pistillate seed-parent should result in a population of all pistillate offspring. This is not the case. In most cases, the offspring of hermaphrodite parents tend toward hermaphrodism, which is largely unfavorable for the production of Cannabis other than fiber hemp. This is not to say that there is no tendency for hermaphrodite crosses to alter sex ratios in the offspring. The accidental release of some pollen from predominantly pistillate hermaphrodites, along with the complete eradication of nearly every staminate and staminate hermaphrodite plant may have led to a shift in sexual ratio in domestic populations of sinsemilla drug Cannabis. It is commonly observed that these strains tend toward 60% to 80% pistillate plants and a few pistillate hermaphrodites are not uncommon in these populations.
However, a cross can be made which will produce nearly all pistillate or staminate individuals. If the proper pistillate hermaphrodite plant is selected as the pollen-parent and a pure pistillate plant is selected as the seed-parent it is possible to produce an F1, and subsequent generations, of nearly all pistillate offspring. The proper pistillate hermaphrodite pollen-parent is one which has grown as a pure pistillate plant and at the end of the season, or under artificial environmental stress, begins to develop a very few staminate flowers. If pollen from these few staminate flowers forming on a pistillate plant is applied to a pure pistillate seed parent, the resulting F1 generation should be almost all pistillate with only a few pistillate hermaphrodites. This will also be the case if the selected pistillate hermaphrodite pollen source is selfed and bears its own seeds. Remember that a selfed hermaphrodite gives rise to more hermaphrodites, but a selfed pistillate plant that has given rise to a limited number of staminate flowers in response to environmental stresses should give rise to nearly all pistillate offspring. The F1 offspring may have a slight tendency to produce a few staminate flowers under further environmental stress and these are used to produce F2 seed. A monoecious strain produces 95+% plants with many pistillate and staminate flowers, but a dioecious strain produces 95+% pure pistillate or staminate plants. A plant from a dioecious strain with a few inter-sexual flowers is a pistillate or staminate hermaphrodite. Therefore, the difference between monoecism and hermaphrodism is one of degree, determined by genetics and environment.

Crosses may also be performed to produce nearly all staminate offspring. This is accomplished by crossing a pure staminate plant with a staminate plant that has produced a few pistillate flowers due to environmental stress, or selfing the latter plant. It is readily apparent that in the wild this is not a likely possibility. Very few staminate plants live long enough to produce pistillate flowers, and when this does happen the number of seeds produced is limited to the few pistillate flowers that occur. In the case of a pistillate hermaphrodite, it may produce only a few staminate flowers, but each of these may produce thousands of pollen grains, any one of which may fertilize one of the plentiful pistillate flowers, producing a seed. This is
another reason that natural Cannabis populations tend toward predominantly pistillate and pistillate hermaphrodite plants. Artificial hermaphrodites can be produced by hormone sprays, mutilation, and altered light cycles. These should prove most useful for fixing traits and sexual type.

Drug strains are selected for strong dioecious tendencies. Some breeders select strains with a sex ratio more nearly approaching one than a strain with a high pistillate sex ratio. They believe this reduces the chances of pistillate plants turning hermaphrodite later in the season.

Only problem, Robert Clarke whiffed on the last sentence of the first paragraph and he MEANT TO SAY "Therefore, the difference between 'DIOECIOUS' and hermaphrodism is one of degree determined by genetics and environment.... He is talking about dioecious and hermies and then therefore for the monoecious and that is not correct.....But I know what he meant to say as I AM SAYING IT! Again, ROBERT IS TALKING ABOUT THE HERMIE BELL CURVE!!! When it is ONE OF DEGREE, GENETIC AND ENVIRONMENT....THAT BE QUANTITATIVE!

However, Roberts Clarks assessment on Cannabis is applicable to fig as fig really all hermies and Robert is even suggesting this when he mentions the 'one of degree' thing......So from there the Cannabis breeders got a hold of the 1972 paper on using GA3 to produce 'feminized' pollen and since males are the BANE of Cannabis growers....Here we are 15 years later with stoners breeding for 'feminized seed' and the Cannabis breeding industry has just taken off....All the while, Japan, looks like they understand what is really going on in fig and that the pure pistillates are either pistillate hermies or pure pistillate hermies and with their knowledge of GA3 (as they discovered it)...most-likely working on a 'hunch' like what I am suggesting to all of you....it looks like the Japanese have worked out feminized pollen production using GA3 in breba fig. To think, this might actually work in fig and we can get S1 hybrids....2/3 persistant too and ALL FEMALE!!! MY GOSH!!!

One more error on my part, but not a biggie....You get 50% persistent when crossing the persistent caprifig onto a edible female fig, BUT, I LEFT THIS OUT....1/2 of those will be male as you are using a male as one of the parents.....look at heterocaprifig below.....YOU BETTER HOPE YOU HAVE A HETERO TOO!!!! So IF you have a hetero caprifig and you cross onto a female edible fig, YOU GET A LOT FEWER PERSISTENT FEMALES AS YOU HAVE MALES TO DEAL WITH ALONG WITH PERSISTENCE. WHEN YOU USE 'FEMINIZED' POLLEN, YOU GET ALL FEMALE AND YOU JUST NEED TO DEAL WITH PERSISTENCE AND 25% gaP/gaP eggs never make it...THAT IS WAY BETTER THAN USING A CAPRIFIG AND YOU BETTER HOPE WHEN YOU USE A CAPRIFIG IT IS HETERO! NO WONDER THE JAPANESE ARE USING GA3 and going the synthetic hybrid route using 'feminized' pollen.....using caprifig males and the NUMBERS SUCK!!!
homo caprifig                     heterocaprifig

I did not show the parent allele column but with the female it ONLY recessive ga.....with the hetero male the bi-alleles are GA and ga....50% males EVEN BEFORE TAKING INTO ACCOUNT PERSISTENCE??? Oh man...:( It's funny because Hiro is probably saying, "Tom, why did you have to fill them in? Now were are going to have too many fig!" ....Sorry Hiro...:)

Hey Hiro, I had to tell them because it is a WAY COOL quantitative genetic breeding system with genes and a wasp and you can play with GA3....Play from a plant breeder point of view.....Man, I had to tell them...:)

Man, in about 5 years or so, there may be a lot of S1 fig hybrids around....Hopefully not all from Japan.....

I have not heard of this Japanese fig breeding program, do you have any links where I can read more about their program?

One more error in my Punnet squares.....Not bad though and the comparison favors S1's all the way. When you cross a female persistent fig, you have ga+ alleles in the egg only....all with P alleles die....So when you cross ga+ female gametes with 'feminized' gaP/ga+ pollen, you get 100% female and 50% persistent....That's still way better than using a male for pollen! Half of the offspring will be male BEFORE taking into account persistence and you really do not know how the male contributes to the female pheno just by looking! Again, no wonder the Japanese are using GA3......Sorry for the slight math errors, but it's been a while since I did three gene Punnets and I tend to catch myself when I do simple mistakes like this...:) But still....NO MALES AND 50% persistent......and you know what you are getting.....my gosh!