Quote Originally Posted by kc261 View Post
This is the important part, and the reason I will usually say the line doesn't matter as much as the look of the animal. While it is absolutely true that the line CAN make a big difference, it won't matter much if the breeders don't take care to maintain the features of the line.

If someone gets a male lemon pastel directly from NERD, but does not take care in which female normal they mate it to, not only to produce good pastels, but also to produce those that will feature the traits that make lemon pastels what they are (vivid yellow, etc), then the pastels they produce will have lost 50% of the modifying genes that make a lemon pastel what it is. Perhaps the next generation will be bred to a spider to make bees, and you can bet that breeder is not paying nearly as much attention to making a good lemon pastel as they are to making good bees, if they are paying any attention at all to quality. But the pastel offspring, which now have roughly 25% of the modifying genes that NERD so carefully selected for in their establishing of the lemon pastel line, will still be sold as lemon pastels.

So you can see how very quickly a snake from the lemon pastel line will lose almost all the qualities that make it a lemon pastel when breeders don't take care to maintain those qualities.

I'll agree wholeheartedly that the line can make a big difference IF the breeders have taken care to maintain that difference through selective breeding. But I bet with a little looking, one can also find 2 "lemon pastels" that are at least as different in their looks as the 2 pastels you posted, because many people who don't breed selectively will still apply the lemon pastel name to their offspring, regardless of whether or not those offspring fit the description of a lemon pastel anymore.

this is why line doesn't matter, you can argue what the OP says, but not all lemons look like that and not all Graziani look like that. I've seen pastels without a line look better than those posted. You have to look at the animal not the label placed upon it. so this is why I saw line doesn't matter