Dresdor's Crossbreeding Guide

Introduction

• Crossbreeding is the combination of two plants to yield a third, child, plant. Currently this can be done with Sea Lilies, Flax, and Vines. This requires a little bit of knowledge, a little bit of experimentation, and a little bit of luck.
• The Procedure is simple:
  • Build a greenhouse (or have access to one)
  • Place the parent seeds on the left and right splints of the greenhouse (seeds will be consumed in this process)
  • Initiate the crossbreed (Requires Nut's Essense)
  • Wait 15 minutes, the retrieve your child seed (the Main chat channel will notify you when it is ready)
  • Plant, observe it's traits, and enjoy.

Understanding Crossbreeding

It is easy to plug in two plants and pray for something good to come out, but this largely is a waste of Nut's Essence. Two things are of vital importance to a cross: 1. The two parent plants and 2. Which splint they are placed on. The parents contribute the genetics to the child, and which splint they are placed on determines the order the genetics are combined in.

The Genomes and Phenome Theories Links shows the known genetics of some of the plants in the game (most of the original plant stocks). I think it is appropriate to define the terms I will be using from here on:

• A Genotype is the genetic code of a particular plant (i.e. KGRORVGOOOVUROOVIOVIOOVIOOOK is the Sea Lily Blush's genotype)
• A Phenotype is the physical genetic expression of a particular plan (i.e. Sea Lily Blush has 3 sets of Pink petals, 1 set of white petals, and a stamen with 3 different intensities of pink)

In crossbreeding, we attempt to combine Genotypes to create a desired Phenotype. It should be noted that, certain traits are considered a "base" state, white in sea lilies, for example. These exist if there are no active genes that would effect that region of the plant.

When two plants are crossbred, the Genotypes are combined in a specific manner. At our current understanding, it is believed that the crossbreeding program generates a random percentage. This percentage determines where each Genotype is "cut." The two cut Genotypes are then combined to create the child plant's genotype.

For Example:

• Left: Sea Lily Fracture (KROYGROYGYORGORGOOOK)
• Right: Sea Lily Vampire (KIYIYIOIYIOIOK)
  • If the cross occurs at 50%, the child's genotype is KROYGROYGYIYIOIOK.
  • Note to avoid confusion: if 30% of one plant's genotype is taken, then 70% of the other type will be taken.

Understanding the Genetics

I should note for those that haven't attempted crossbreeding yet that it is impossible to know the genotype without using solvents to try to figure it out. Usually genetics is used to work backwards from a phenotype to find an estimation of the genotype. Understanding the genotype and the gene order is vital to determining which parents to use for a particular cross.

Though further research is needed to fully understand it, genetics seems to work like this:

• Genotypes are composed of a series of Genetic Markers (I,Y,G,R,O,U,K)
• K is used to designate the begining and end of a genotype
• The remaining markers, when in specific combinations, are Genes
• Markers used for a complete Gene may be usable in other Genes (in Sea Lily IOOO contributes 1 magenta to every stamen level (Genes: IO, IOO, IOOO)){Needs confirmation}
• Incomplete or split gene sequences are not complete Genes, and thus aren't active (Split Magenta Genes (UROO) in Sea Lily Crown (URVOO) aren't active)

• • Important Note: Vine Genetics aren't very well understood, and most of what we know in other categories is from experiments, old data, and guesswork. More research is always welcome. The dawn of mutagenics will require a fuller understanding of genetics.

Finding Your Phenotype

Every plant type has a different set of phenotypes, and this is going to be a very basic overview of the process. Flax is the most straight forward. The amount of flax per harvest, rotten flax per harvest, seeds per wild harvest, weedings, waterings, are the obvious ones (and it is believed that there are ones related to pollution as well). Lilies have their varying colors and the positions of the colors, their intesnities, etc. Vines have mutations as their phenotypes, resulting in differing changes per tending. This section may be expanded later, but at the moment, there's an excellent Vine guide: Finding Your Phenotype

Estimating your Genotype

After you have discovered your Phenotype, you can move on to estimating your Genotype. From your Phenotype you should have a good idea of what your active genes are, and from your parent plants you should have a good guess of where they come from. The trick is trying to determine where the split happened. The simple way to do it is to start on the splint side of each parent's genome (i.e. the left of the left splint parent, the right of the right splint parent) and mark off the genes that are present in the child. Stop when you run out of genes for both sides. Up to the last gene that is Phenotypically present, you can be fairly certain that that part of the genotype has been transfered to the child. If you are out of Phenotype markers, then the middle is going to be an unkown area (as without using solvents, it is impossible to determine Genetic Markers that are present in the middle that are not part of active genes). If you are lucky enough to get something new, that is not present in either parent, you can make an educated guess as to where the cross happened exactly, by trying to find between the parents where the gene could have been formed by splicing the two genomes together. This allows for a more clear picture of the genotype (and is somewhat rare).

Advanced Theory: Moving Genes

It is one thing to combine two parents with desired traits that are conveniently located on opposite sides of the genotype. It is another thing to deliberatly design your plants with selective crossbreeding. This section is dedicated to creating seed stocks for crossbreeding that can introduce genes that are normally hard to isolate with the base plants. Mutagenics will make this largely superfluous, although I believe it will have its uses even then.

The first thing to understand is that genotypes have varying lengths. This is the most important aspect of this process. The second thing to understand is that crossbreeding uses a percentage system, and not a whole genetic marker system. This means that if you cross a plant with a genotype length of 18 and another with genotype length 32, you can end wih a child that is 18-32 genetic markers in length. The basic purpose of this process is to push a desired gene to a side of the genotype by adding or subtracting genes from either side of the desired gene.

Example is the only way to show this process. Let us say that we are creating a Sea Lily and we desire it to have the following traits: A Giant Gene and the Stamen Coloring of Clarity with the Stamen coloring of vampire (to make pink lower stamen, and hopefully a deep purple middle and upper stamen). Seems fairly difficult, as both Fracture and the Giant gene are located in the same spot on the left. If we can move the Giant gene towards the middle, or to the right, we can combine it with fracture, and then perhaps combine it again with Blush to get the results we want.

Cross 1: L:Fracture KROYGROYGYORGORGOOOK R: Vampire KIYIYIOIYIOIOK Note: Goal is to shorten the amount of Genetic Markers on the right side of the giant gene "ROYG" Result (assuming a 50% cross) KROYGROYGYIYIOIOK The "ROYG" gene has moved from being (from the left) 27%-44% along the genotype to being 33%-53% along the genotype.

Cross 2: L: Cross1 KROYGROYGYIYIOIOK R: Vampire: KIYIYIOIYIOIOK Note: Trying again to reduce the genotype. Result (assuming 50% cross) KROYGROYGIYIOIOK The "ROYG" gene moves slightly more to 35%-57%. This is as far as we can move it towards the center.

Cross 3: L: Clarity KIRIRIOIOIYIYGORRGRORGRROGORRGRORGRROK R: Cross 2 KROYGROYGIYIYIOK Note: This is an attempt to pad the left side of the genome. This requires some luck, as a cross of more than 35% from the left will shred the "ROYG" gene that we are looking for. Result (assuming 35%) KIRIRIOIOIYIYGROYGIYIYIOK Now we have precisely what we want. Also, the ROYG gene has been pushed all the way to 60%-74%. Not only is it what we wanted it also is a good seed stock for crossing giant into other plants.

• • note: I used Vampire because of it's short gene length.

This pushing and pulling can be done by manipulation of gene length. It requires some luck and patience, but this is crossbreeding, what doesn't require luck and patience?

Mutagenics

Mutagenics is not released yet, this guide will be updated when it is.