3 ms·

I've never seen the word "breed" applied to plant cultivars before. Is that a common American thing?

• dekhn 3y ago
  You mean, like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Burbank#Classical_plant_breeding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Burbank#Classical_plant... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Burbank#Intraspecific_breeding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Burbank#Intraspecific_b... ? Are you talking about specifically using "breed" (noun) to refer to a cultivar, or "breed" (verb) to refer to the process by which we obtain new cultivars/ Either way, the term is used colloquially throughout the US (and probably more) to refer to the industrial products of plant breeding.
  • stevage 3y ago
    The noun. Mostly I hear variety and cultivar.
    • thaumasiotes 3y ago
      You also see "varietal". But all of the words are synonymous with each other, so it's not clear why people strive for exotic terminology.
      • stevage 3y ago
        I'm a bit confused, who do you think is "striving" in this scenario?
• ericra 3y ago
  It's common when talking about peppers since there are so many varieties of the same species. I guess cultivar, variety, and breed are mostly synonymous except that cultivar (to me) implies that human intervention was involved in the selecting. Variety can be used to mean the same thing but naturally without human intervention. And breed seems to be a more colloquial term that encompasses both of these. I'm not entirely sure this is always accurate, but that is the distinction afaik.