Handed said:A question for those with experience in breeding, can a cross between two evergreens result in dormant seedlings?
Yes, a cross between two evergreens can produce some dormant seedlings. Stout (in the 1940s) found that the evergreen characteristic is dominant to the dormant characteristic in diploids. No one has looked at their inheritance in tetraploids and in general the genetics of tetraploids can be more complicated. However, probably any complications in tetraploids would tend to make it more likely for tetraploid crosses involving only evergreens to produce some dormants.
Some evergreen x evergreen diploid crosses would not produce any dormant seedlings; other evergreen x evergreen diploid crosses may produce approximately 25% dormant seedlings. It is not possible to provide theoretical estimates of what tetraploid evergreen x evergreen crosses would produce (scientific research is needed).
One thing to keep in mind is that how one defines evergreen versus dormant may affect the numbers of the different types of seedlings one would find in crosses of evergreen diploids.
