BioConcepts

hybrid vigorHybridstärke (ger.)

• The tendency of a cross-bred individual to show qualities superior to those of both parents. Also called heterosis. (Oxford Dict. of English 2010)
  category heredity

  1912

  We make the statement that hybrid vigor increases with the amount or with the kind of heterozygosis advisedly. The increased vigor may vary roughly with the number of heterozygous characters present, up to that limiting case where the action of other forces prevents or obscures their influence, or it may depend largely upon the quality of the characters that are heterozygous.

  East, E.M. & Hayes, H.K. (1912). Heterozygosis in Evolution and in Plant Breeding (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Plant Industry, Bull. No. 243): 30.

  1918

  Not all species hybrids, however, display hybrid vigor, and many indeed show a strikingly weakened condition accompanied by much lessened vegetative vigor.

  Babcock, E.B. & Clausen, R.E. (1918). Genetics in Relation to Agriculture: 230.