servatusprime

After doing a little looking, it seems that offtypes can contribute to a fair amount of variability in a variety. So what do you do with that? I guess you could be a purist and say only the "real deal" with a confirming DNA test will do or throw out what you got if its qualities are undesirable.

From what I've read so far (not a vast amount) it seems that the change in an offtype is not predictable and not necessarily detrimental. The change could be very minor and essentially have the desired variety. Of course on the other hand, the change could be so significant that some one wants to declare it a new variety all together.

Unless you have a significant meaningful change, I don't see a reason to say that it isn't the intended variety. (For some reason I can't help but think of dog breeds like a Jack Russel Terrier which has significant variability in appearance characteristics yet they are all the same breed according to the experts)

I'll do some more looking, but so far I'm not convinced that I don't have a FHIA-1 and SH-3640 in my yard. I'm not looking to prove myself right, so if I'm wrong or botanically misguided, let me know. I'm keeping my goldfinger or foolsgoldfinger or what ever it is because I like it. (If I have a new variety I'll have to come up with a better name and become famous)