Sallee’s Halfmoons and Deltas

Show Quality Bettas and Asian Imports

Genetics

Business Hours: 9:30am-7:00pm CST

 

Phone: 940-458-3809

Constance Sallee

E-mail: csbettas@earthlink.net

 

 

Genetics is one of the most miss-understood topics around the Betta world today. There are a lot of articles out there trying to explain the subject, but very few actually break it down into terms we all can understand, I have spent most of my adult life working with this remarkable fish, and still after many years of study I have a lot to learn. Some of the basics are truly basic high school science we all should know, but yet I have so many people asking what the term P1 means.

             This term is attributed to Gregor Mendel, (the Austrian Monk in the 19^th century) during his work with pea plants. P1 means Parent 1 or Parental generation, a term given to the first offspring of an outcross, such as a Betta Splendens cross to a Betta Imbellis.  (Please note: this does not mean this term is only reserved for outcrosses between two species, this term is used for all non-related outcrosses)  From memory I recall Mendel’s work vegly. I recall that between 1856 and 1863 he did a study using two different types of pea plants, Mendel compared seven traits: 1.Smoothness of the seeds. 2. Color of the seeds. 3. Color of the seed coats. 4. Shape of the pods. 5. Color of unripe pods. 6. Position of flowers. 7. Length of the stems. He started by cross pollinating Non-related plants, the resulting generation he labeled P1. From there the Related generation was crossed and the resulting offspring were labeled F1, meaning first Generation. In his studies he was dealing with hybrids were as many Betta breeders don’t, however the terms still apply. Here is a break down of the terms for all         those that did not pay attention in high school science class

             P1- Parental Generation 

             F1- First in cross generation

             F2- Second in cross generation

             F3- Third in cross generation

             F4- fourth in cross generation

Some of these F generations go up to 6 and 7 in cross generations though not recommended some people will inbreed this far, but from the list above you can see that a F6 is truly in most peoples’ opinion a seventh generation. You can now at least say you know the deference between P1 and F1

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