self pollination questions

[Devon]

Hello,

I have a few questions about self pollination and the effects on seed.

-Will self pollinated seeds produce weaker seedlings/weaker adult plants?

-Say I self pollinate a plant, grow those seeds to maturity, then self pollinate that plant, and so on, will the plants continue to get weaker every generation?

-I have a weak D. burmannii "Piliga red" seedling, and it's my only one. Will seeds from this plant be just as weak/weaker?

I'm not sure if I'm asking these correctly. I'm not very good at explaining or asking questions.

Thanks.

 

[Not a Number]

Plants that are self-fertile and readily self-pollinate are resistant to "in-breeding depression" otherwise they wouldn't have been able to survive.

That said there can be a lot of variability of the offspring in terms of vigor. When grown indoors I normally do not feed the slow growers and will eventually cull them out. Why keep the weak plants unless there is something unique about them. Survival of the fittest and all that.

 

[Devon]

Plants that are self-fertile and readily self-pollinate are resistant to "in-breeding depression" otherwise they wouldn't have been able to survive.

That said there can be a lot of variability of the offspring in terms of vigor. When grown indoors I normally do not feed the slow growers and will eventually cull them out. Why keep the weak plants unless there is something unique about them. Survival of the fittest and all that.

Ah, that makes sense.

I always keep the strongest looking ones too, but in the burmannii case with only one sprout, I had no choice. Thanks for the help!