Hybrid trees

There seems to be a lot of hybrid trees offered for sale these days and lots of people interested in buying them, but I often wonder if we are making identification more difficult in the future by planting too many of them. I know hybrids have always existed, but never with our help. For example, if I were to plant a Quercus macrocarpa X virginiana, 70 years from now after I'm long gone will anyone know what it is? Or what it's offspring is? There are some cases where there is no option, such as with my chestnut trees. But that's for the purpose of saving a species, not just for the fun of experimenting.

E-guy:

I'll wade into this one; experimenting, as it were.

Forgive me, but I'm not sure I'm interpreting correctly what you wrote above:

Hybrids in nature (discounting human intervention) have and will continue to happen. The excellent photo/thread elsewhere here on T&S about Quercus x sternbergii is a classic example, and just one of many.

Following your questions: if you plant the oak hybrid (I assume this is a human-generated example you offer), I'd guess that the average run-of-the-mill person may not know what it is, but that is the case with many common native and introduced plants now which are not hybrids. People that are interested in plants may recognize this hybrid on sight in the future, and I'd bet my viburnum collection that simple diagnostics for DNA recognition in years hence would ferret out its identity relatively quickly.

You are also assuming that human-generated hybrids planted now will actually persist indefinitely. I'm not sure that will be the case.

Experimentation is the human condition, though not always for the good. I'm glad prehistoric humans experimented with the species that generated today's food crops (corn, tomatoes, potatoes, apples, etc.). I'm glad others experimented and came up with ornamental roses and zinnias and daylilies and a host of others. In the future, there may be reason to be thankful that plants can be manipulated to host the production of pharmaceuticals efficiently to cure diseases and extend lives. Maybe not. Human cross-pollination and hybridizing (with other Homo sapiens) is probably to blame for more ills than having fun hybridizing plants.

At least people have the ability to recognize that (with themselves, and with plants) and can choose to change their behavior. Such as to attempt to save a species.

E-guy,
The vast majority of the hybrid oaks, walnuts, hicans, etc., are naturally-occurring selections, and some of them, like Schuettes(Q.macrocarpaXbicolor) and Bebbs(Q.macrocarpaXalba) oaks are fairly common 'in the wild' in areas where the ranges of the two parent species overlap. And, in some areas, like CO, the natural hybrids - Q.macrocarpaXgambelli - for example, still persist in significant numbers, while the Q.macrocarpa population has long since disappeared.
Most selections from these hybrid populations are made either for ornamental features, improved timber-type growth, precocious bearing, low-tannin acorns, etc. Very few have been the result of purposeful hybridizing(Marquez and Cottam's works notwithstanding).
Will anyone other than your grandchild(or great-grandchildren) know that it's a Q.macrocarpaXvirginiana, planted by ol' Granddad, in 70 years? Probably not. But, it's no less valuable because it's a hybrid than if you'd planted a Q.stellata seedling - and probably intrinsically more valuable than a Q.nigra seedling(or a sweetgum!).
Will hybrid pollen cross into the local population? Possibly. In your area, the Q.virginiana genes are probably already floating around out there, but Q.macrocarpa is only native in AL to a small pocket in Montgomery Co. Your hybrid could conceivably cross-pollenate with local Q.alba, Q.stellata, Q.michauxii, etc., to produce offspring with complex ancestry. Miscegenation ain't always a bad thing.
15 years ago, I wouldn't have noticed or cared either, but somewhere along the way I became enthralled with bur oak - and subsequently, its hybrids with other members of the white oak group; this interest has now spread to the red/black oak group, and other woody species as well.

...so the birthday boy emerges...

Lucky:

Happy additional year!

May no Liquidambar shadow darken your door; may the wind always be at your catkins back; and may all your nuts be full.

Thanks guys. It was a question that was in the back of my mind, but I wanted to hear other views on it. I don't actually have that Q.virginiana X macrocarpa, it was purely hypothetical.

Thanks, for the kind wishes VV. One more down. The big 5-0 coming up next time around, if I make it that long.
Been laid up with the flu - or something like it, for the past 4-5 days; actually feeling like I'll survive today.

VV makes a good point about the 'enhanced' human-directed hybrids possibly not persisting without a human caretaker, of sorts. Woody plants might hang in there pretty well if a reasonable breeding population wasin place, but many annuals and perhaps some perennials & woodies would almost certainly not be able to persist without fertilization, control of competing vegetation(weeds), etc. They might die out quickly, or at least regress back toward their 'less productive' ancestor.
It doesn't take many generations in the wild before escaped domestic pigs look amazingly like Eurasian boar, and, at least for annuals, the generation time is pretty short.

E-guy, I'd like to have that macrocarpaXvirginiana hybrid, and I'm pretty sure I know where to get one - but I might have to see if I can wrangle some cuttings of the real deal and graft it, rather than planting an F2 seedling with who knows what as the pollen parent.

Crossbreeding is such a interesting subject and occupied much of my effort when I was in the production phase of animal husbandry. When we lived in northern MN we raised sheep for wool and market lambs, and crossed certain breeds to achieve certain desireable characteristics. Our F1 cross was a meld of a wool breed and another breed that littered (multiple births). The ewe lamb from that cross we then bred to a heavy bodied "Down" breed to finally produce our market lamb. We knew to separate these groups at breeding time because the crosses bred to parents or to themselves would lose the "hybrid vigor" we were striving to continue in our flock.
When I was younger on our initial farm in northern IL we would breed domesticated Mallard ducks to Muscovy ducks and end up with a cross that when eaten had less fat and more lean, much as you would get if you could cross a domestic duck with a wild goose. This "hybrid" was sterile just like a mule is sterile.
Now with present day genetics, if they can engineer a soybean plant that is tolerant to both broadleaf and grassy herbicides; and a tomato that looks good enough to eat (and isn't), my guess is that anything can be tweaked to produce an immeadiate end. Will it be a lasting end, or something that either runs it course or turns around and bites us in some way only time will tell. I can only hope that caution would prevail. Ken

One of my favorite oaks that I grow is a bur x live x english oak, see attached photo. This is a tree that resulted from an open pollination so the genetic makeup might be far more colorful. I also would like to get a grafted tree of bur x live oak, two stellar parents. F1 hybrids, I raised sheep for years and had some great first crosses between Romney and Border Leicester. Using a terminal sire like a Suffolk resulted in a fast growing lamb great for market. F2 genetics can be all over the place with sheep but with some organism you have more stability. I also played around with rose hybridization. With roses I found that some crosses end up with sterile pollen or might produce viable pollen but wouldn't set seed. Maybe sterility might play a role in evening things out with these oaks that we are creating.

That's a beautiful tree! Which parent do you notice most in it? I can almost see all three (maybe because I've been told). It kinda has live oak branching, but those big leaves look like a combo of Q.macrocarpa and Q.robur.

Viburnum Valley, I'm curious to know what you mean by this:

"Human cross-pollination and hybridizing (with other Homo sapiens) is probably to blame for more ills than having fun hybridizing plants."

...but it's kind of fun.

Scott