Now, I am going to tell you about using controlled breeding. We started almond breeding in California, where we have one of the biggest commercial nut industries in the country. We started almond breeding in 1920 with the best known almonds. In the 30 years of almond breeding we have introduced two varieties. We had a panel of 125 commercial almond growers who decided on those two varieties out of more than 20,000 known controlled crosses that were made of trees that were grown to fruiting. But it took a panel of 125 commercial growers to determine whether or not these two varieties, the Jordanolo and the Harpareil, were commercial varieties.
Those two varieties were planted. The nurserymen planted them, the grower took them over, and they couldn't grow enough trees to supply the demand. These two varieties have been introduced for commercial planting now for 14 years. Of the two, one has stood the test of time, and it stands now as probably the second most important almond variety in all the United States, has been taken to foreign countries and is being extensively propagated. One of them made the grade, the Jordanolo. The Harpareil is still in the running, but it is down with the 30 or 40 varieties that are of lesser importance.
MR. CALDWELL: Can you reproduce that result?
DR. CRANE: No.
MR. CALDWELL: Then you don't know what that is or the happenstance that got it.
DR. CRANE: Certainly, because you don't know about breeding nut trees.
MR. CALDWELL: That's what I say should be learned.
DR. CRANE: In the first place, the chromosomes are so small and there are so many, that you can't identify them, and you can't tell which genes, and they have got a heterozygous population, and the variety is self-sterile and has to be cross-pollinated, so there is only one way from a horticultural standpoint by which we can do anything, and that is through clones.
DR. MacDANIELS: I think we are getting a little bit off.
DR. CRANE: We are off, way off.