My final goal is to have a matrix table of plant and plant specifications, with columns for mother, father, comparison plant and comparison plant 2.
The specs are things like Harvest time, Plant shape, etc.
Each plant has an assigned mother (same entity), father (same entity), Comparison Plant 1 (Comparison entity), Comparison Plant 2 (comparison entity.) Many plants can have the same mother or father, or the same comparison variety(s). The obvious problems are linking records within the same entity, or linking two records (comparision varieties) to a single record.