Mary Allen
With breeding, man intervenes in natural reproduction. He changes animals or plants in such a way that their offspring correspond to the wishes of man. The words “breeding” or “breeding” comes from the Middle Ages and originally meant “teacher” or “educator”. In the past, people spoke of chaste behavior which meant decent behavior.
There are various goals in animal breeding: the animals should be larger and thus produce more meat, provide more milk or eggs and grow faster, consume less feed, and remain healthier. Horses are supposed to be faster, fight dogs stronger, and so on. However, breeds often have not only the desired advantages but also disadvantages. Breeding animals results in special breeds.
Plant breeding also has different goals: fruits should be larger and more colorful. Usually, they should not get any soft or brown spots during transport. They are said to be less likely to get sick or to withstand certain poisons that can be used to control weeds. The taste can also be changed through targeted breeding. When plants are bred, they produce special varieties.
Animal breeding also means something else, namely rearing. The aim is to make as many as possible out of two animals. One then speaks of chicken breeding or pig breeding. Pig farming is about getting as many piglets as possible, which put on a lot of meat as quickly as possible. Then they are slaughtered. Raising chickens is either about a lot of meat or as many hens as possible to lay eggs. One then also speaks of chicken fattening or pig fattening. One often speaks of chicken production or pig production.
How do you breed animals?
Animal husbandry methods are different. The easiest way is to choose two parents with good characteristics. In this way, a more suitable young animal can develop during fertilization. However, this requires many attempts. The semen of a good breeding bull or stallion will then be artificially removed and injected through the vagina of many cows or mares. The power veterinarian and the recipient have to pay quite a bit of money for it.
However, this method is only really successful if it is continued over and over again for generations. The changes in a single young animal are often not very large. So it takes a lot of diligence and patience, sometimes for centuries.
In exceptional cases, it is even possible to cross animals from different species with one another. The best-known example is provided by horses and donkeys: the mule, also known as a mule, was created from a horse mare and a donkey stallion. The mule was created from a horse stallion and a donkey mare. Both breeds are less shy than horses and very good-natured. However, mules and hinnies themselves can no longer father young animals.
How to grow plants
The simplest breeding is selection. As early as the Stone Age, people collected the largest grains of sweet grass and sowed them again. This is how today’s grain came into being.
Plants are raised in a similar way to animals. It is then no longer left to the insects to carry the pollen from one flower to the other. A human does this with a brush or similar instrument. But then you have to shield the plant and prevent a bee from destroying the result.
This is how, for example, tulips with special colors or roses with extraordinary scents are created. Sometimes the seeds or small bulbs carry the new properties, sometimes they don’t. Tulip bulbs, for example, form small bulbs in the ground that lie next to their mother-like children. If you dig them up and put them back in individually, it can happen that the new tulips are small and colorless.
When it comes to fruit, there is this: a new apple can be tasty and crunchy. If you put the core in the ground, the apples on the new tree will stay that way. Only the tree itself becomes weak and sickly. It must therefore be grafted onto another trunk. This process is described in detail in the article fruit tree.
What are the disadvantages of breeding?
With today’s cultivated fruit and vegetables, many good qualities have been lost. This mainly affects the taste, many things have become bland. However, there are also breeders who specialize in preserving the old varieties. You can clearly taste the difference. The only difference is that the yields are smaller, so the goods are usually more expensive.
Today’s high-yielding grain varieties are also cultivated, otherwise, they wouldn’t give so much. Sometimes you can set aside part of the harvest and sow it again the next year. However, this is not the case for many varieties. The farmer then has to buy new seeds every year. This is particularly problematic in poorer countries. Many farmers then no longer have any seed of their own that they could continue to use.
Another problem is the possibility of patenting a breed. This allows a company to have its new plant protected by the state and then has the sole right to sell it. This will be very expensive for the farmers. When they have used up their own seeds, they have to buy seeds again and again. The original varieties are then lost forever.