Polyploid pillar complex is rare terminology even in botany even in a plant genetics class. Looking it up myself I can’t shed much light on the “pillar” part of it.
The term raises questions for me about how gene flow works in the three species complex. It may mean it is more complex than I would have assumed.
The situation with tomato species is generally very simple. They are all diploid and they all cross.
This term suggests that the situation with miners lettuce is somewhat more complex like the situation with wheat where we have multiple doublings sometimes in one population of traditionally grown wheat.
That doesn’t mean that there isn’t crossing and gene flow though it just means it is more complex!
Interesting discussion. My two cents:
I was introduced to a “grex” from an Alan Kapuler discussion. It’s seems to be quoted at this webpage as I remember it:
“In some plant groups, notably within orchids, where complex hybrid parentages are carefully recorded, the group system is further refined. Each hybrid is given a grex name (Latin for flock) which covers all offspring from that particular cross, however different they may be from one another. Individual cultivars may then be named and propagated by division or micropropagation. Although a grex is similar to a botanical hybrid in principal, backcrossing a member of a grex with one of its parents results in a new grex, with a new name, whereas backcrossing a hybrid makes no difference to the hybrid name.”
But I think it was from this podcast episode:
Episode 023 - Dr. Alan ‘Mushroom’
Kapuler: Weaving the Fabric of Biodiversity Through Plant Breeding
Earth Repair Radio
I have read through this, and the common thread I see is intent. A person could plant fifteen different varieties of lettuce, but without the goal of creating a proto-landrace the result is not a grex. The grex is created by the intent to keep seeds from the crosses.
In the next generation, if that person sees accidental crosses and thinks, “Oops,” and pulls out everything that doesn’t fit the varietal description; not a grex.
A hybrid swarm can develop separate from the gardener, and hybrids are the gold standard in nature. A grex never will, and neither will a landrace. (And yes, you could argue that a landrace can survive in nature, but it was initially created with intent.)
As far as definitions go, the pervading question seems to be duration. Is a grex only g0, or does it extend to the first f1 crosses in g1? And then g2 becomes a hybrid swarm?
I think landrace again is a matter of intent. It becomes a landrace when sufficient local adaptation has taken place and the gardener’s goals are accomplished.
I regret that language I started using 15 years ago differs from what Alan Kapuler uses. He inspired many people who were at the forefront of the movement that eventually became “landrace gardening”. I feel somewhat disrespectful of the grandfather of my ideas. How do I put spilt milk back into a glass, and have it be worth drinking?
For the past 15 years, people badmouthed me for perverting the definition of “landrace”. I respond that there is no language police in the English language. Each person gets one vote about how language is used. Tens of thousands of people have adopted my definition of landrace. I live with the consequences of my writing. I can’t undo this one.
I don’t have much invested in other words like mix, grex, hybrid-swarm, clade, species-complex. I can easily modify my messaging to be more consistent with how these terms are used in other fields of study. As long as I don’t mess with page count, I can make minor edits to the book. And I will certainly be more careful in a 2nd edition.
As a general philosophy I am a lumper instead of a splitter.
What’s a splitter? Someone that says that things are: different, black/white, either/or, right/wrong, separate species. For example the definition of species is two populations that can’t cross with each other. But the definition of hybrid-swarm given earlier in this thread is two species that are crossing with each other. If they are crossing with each other, then they are the same species!!! And therefore a hybrid swarm can’t exist.
What’s a lumper? Someone that says that things are: similar, messy, indistinct, more alike than different. For example: Cushaw and butternut squash cross in my garden. I would call them not quite separate species. The four “species” of red-fruited tomatoes cross freely with each other in both directions. I would call them all the same species. It’s a blessing that I have no formal training in biology, because I can look at an error in taxonomy, and state the obvious truth without needing to defend the status quo. It’s a disadvantage, because my language is different than how other people might talk.
If in doubt about my definition of a word that I used, interpret it in it’s most inclusive sense. Hmm. I didn’t know that about myself until just now.
Alan Kaupuler released his 3 beet grex.
Carol Deppe released Beefy Bean grex.
Don Tipping released kale and broccoli grexes.
Experimental Farm Network lists 25 grexes in this year’s catalog.
All of these people are my heroes, and were my teachers in developing the principles of landrace gardening. So I’m not going to shy away from using the term grex. I’ll be more careful to use it to mean a cross-pollinating clan, rather than just a mixture of varieties.
You are using the biological species concept. It is a favorite of mine since high school because it feels very clear. It is simply based on if they can cross freely. However, that isn’t the only species concept used by taxonomists. Here is a discussion of four species concepts:
I think taxonomists have to use more than one species concept because otherwise it doesn’t work. Like Solanum galapagense. If we say it is the same as Solanum pimpinillifolium because they can freely cross, we do it an injustice for it is clearly unique both morphologically and genetically. So we expand our classification system to incorporate species concepts that can deal with the geographic isolation that allowed it to diverge so much but still stay so similar that it can meet the biological species concept.
One of the things that I like about plant biology is that it is complex. Plants are rule breakers. They do what they want.
Wonderful. I think we are all on the same page about what a grex is, right? A remaining question is, what is the difference between a hybrid swarm and a grex? in the Definitions lesson in the course we have them as basically the same thing. Can they actually be used interchangebly? Besides in Joseph’s book, I’ve seen Wild Mountain Seeds use this term most often. I think William’s definition is an outlier, so I don’t know how to reconcile that.
Personally, I think that Joseph’s definition of grex is different enough from what a person would find when googling that it’s likely to cause confusion. If I were to use this term it would be in the sense found in the horticultural literature, but as mentioned above, I prefer to avoid it.
Can you think of a good grex definition that follows what others define it as but in a simple way that makes sense in our missions to create our own landraces? How about hybrid swarm?
as it relates to orchids a grex is all the children of a single cross between 2 parents. We normally just call that a hybrid. Though to be more specific a grex would be all the children created from the hybridization. It’s kinda what most people get when they take all the seeds from an f1 and plant them - all of those plants together end up being a grex.
“A hybrid swarm is a population of hybrids that has survived beyond the initial hybrid generation, with interbreeding between hybrid individuals and backcrossing with its parent types.” - this sounds a lot more like what i had originally defined as a grex. It’s basically a swarm of genetics all mixed together.
But when people sell seeds that they call grex what do they mean? It can’t be just seeds that they purposefully crossed - that’s just hybrids.
honestly for me the goal of this was to have a defined term for the seeds that we’re sharing so that we can all understand what seeds we’re giving and what we’re receiving.
With that said I can think of a few types of seeds that are super important to making landraces, if anyone can think of the proper word for what i’m saying - awesome.
1 - The gardener takes 2 plants and purposefully crosses 1 with the other, protecting the flowers so that for sure the seeds are a cross (i think this is just called hybrid)
2 - The gardener take as many varieties as possible, can include wild versions, and does their best to get as much hybridization as possible. The goal here to get as much diversity as possible without bringing in the specific traits no one wants (i.e. poisonous, etc). (this is what i was calling a grex)
3 - The gardener takes seeds from #2 and starts growing them in their own garden, selecting the ones that do the absolute best, and picking out traits they specifically don’t want but keeping as much diversity as possible (this is what I think we’re defining as a landrace)
4 - The whole group gets together and pools together seeds from 1, 2, and 3. This is really a much better version of #2 (this is what I was thinking a hybrid swarm was)
I feel like these are the kinds of seeds that we’ll be sharing most often and so we should have specific words for them.
I’m also perfectly happy with having different names for these than what we have been using ones that are specific to our group.
For example we could call 1) Handmade Hybrid, 2) Grex Collection, 3) Landrace, 4) Super Grex Collection
I appreciate the importance of definitions and the desire to standardize terminology. Can’t help but agree that a grower doesn’t appear to need or be familiar with these terms to grow a landrace or have a productive conversation about growing landraces - - you hear “hybrid swarm”, ask what that is, the person you’re talking to gives their definition. The conversation moves on.
What I’m hoping we avoid here is hashing out a clean definition and presenting it as though it’s correct. It seems like any change to the course definitions would need to keep an acknowledgement that agreed-upon definitions don’t exist in the community at large, if they even exist within our group.
Absolutely, especially this part “keep an acknowledgement that agreed-upon definitions don’t exist in the community at large, if they even exist within our group.” or if they even exist at all. Thank you for summing it up so nicely.
Great points, everybody thank you, I’ll work with @silkcom to make any corrections based on input from the group for the definitions lesson., create a page somewhere that has these and the other Definitions from Joseph’s book and add a disclaimer that not everybody agrees
Just invent new terms and let old ones fade. The old vague terms weren’t coined by anyone familiar with the “modern Landrace” concept anyway, right?
Something like “inbred mix” for a mix of seeds believed by the supplier to be inbred, for any reason. Could be mix of seeds of an outcrossing species that hasn’t been inter planted or could be a species like tomato that is unlikely to outcross but has already been planted.
“Crossed mix” for a mix of seeds the supplier believes to have different varieties that have cross pollinated. The generation could also be added if desired.
“Inter species crossed mix” for seeds of mixed species that have crossed.
“Location Landrace” for Landrace crop from a particular location.
The idea is just to use more specific language. Include as much detail as you would want to know if you received seeds from an unfamiliar source. The main thing that will drive adoption of the terms is whatever terms seed sources begin to use from the Landrace community.
Ya, i think I agree with you. When it comes down to it the definitions aren’t super important, to me they only matter when we’re sharing seeds with each other, and even then only a little. I mean it’s nice to know that the seeds someone is willing to send are already at least the start of a landrace. That’s why this was important to me that people weren’t sending a mix of heirlooms when it was thought that they were sending a bunch of cross mixed stuff.
With that said, I really like the idea of coming up with terms for different stages for our group. I think that our group will probably become large enough that the definitions may stick outside the group (especially if other seed companies sell our seeds with the definition intact).
The main ones I can see names for are a mix of landraces from all over that have been selected for specific traits. Example - if people have been making melon landraces and all selecting for sweet, grows well in our area, quick crop, yellow flesh - then we have a _____ fill in the blank of yellow fleshed melon landraces (Landrace Swarm is what sounds good to me?). A landrace swarm then would have to say what traits have been selected for so if you’re looking to join it you follow that. We would then have a generic set of requirements so we could have a normal melon landrace swarm where the only goal is that the flavor is good and it grows without issues.
I’d also like to see a name for a cross that has been hand done - because I think these have really high value to the group as well. For example - if someone takes 2 beans that are totally different and hand pollinate them then the children of that cross are likely valuable for people’s landraces. I would think something like Hand Pollinated F1 or F2 … is probably the right name for that. We could even have Random Cross F1 and F2 etc as well because those are also valuable.
In the end I agree with what others have said, it’s not super important to define everything, but I do think we should come up with a few terms so that we’re on the same page as we try and breed landraces together as a group
You raise excellent points about clarity around seeds in a mix and goals for a project. Terminology for seed parentage in a mix would benefit from shorthand but doesn’t appear to need it. You can always fall back on a verbose description as long as that description comes from good understanding (and having clear shorthand terms won’t fix misunderstanding)
For project goals, I’m glad you’re anticipating the need for clearly describing trait groups. I had thought about this before but you made it much clearer. To use your terminology, if several growers are sending in seed from their lettuce landrace swarms, I’m personally probably happy to try all of it. We’ve barely grown domesticated lettuce before on our place before, so anything from this group is welcome. On the other hand, there might be a lot of bitter lettuce in my lettuce landrace swarm because I really like bitter lettuce. That might not be OK for a lot of people, so maybe there would be a “bitter-permissive” lettuce landrace swarm group that might be maintained separately from the main one.
I think how we identify and mix different interbreeding populations that might be attached to different projects with different goals is an important question, but as it’s a different question from the original purpose of this thread (as I understand it) I might suggest a different thread.
It may be worthwhile trying to come up with really new terms. What is the meaning that most needs to be held in common? That is, what is the definition that most needs a word, so that communication is as consistent as humanly possible?
We could, for example, begin to use the term Kelterswarm. Kelter is a long-forgotten term denoting nonsense. A small (but increasing) group of people growing their plants in a way that looks like nonsense to mainstream horticulture… kelter.
Want more repurposable terms? I’ll find em. What could be more permaculture than upcycling?
