Saturday, April 21, 2012

The Largest Blotch - A Deadend?

Hybridizing this year began in earnest about 2 weeks ago.  As mentioned in the last post, this is also the time that I first get to see last year's survivors blooming outside for the first time.  With the Hulthemias, there are many surprises.  The blotches are typically larger and darker, and the growth pattern tends to change.  I also get the chance to see how they fare to bugs and diseases.  Thrips love some blooms, but leave others alone.  The same is true for the curculio beetle.  Again, this year we have had just the right amount of downy mildew - no seedling deaths, but significant defoliation in those seedlings that are highly susceptible. 

One seedling (I discussed this seedling in an earlier post last year in Smooth Hulthemias), keeps surprising me.  It appears to be thornless (or nearly so), it has very good disease resistance, and to date, it has the largest blotch that I have ever seen in terms of percent of the length of the petal that the blotch covers.  So far, I have collected pollen from about 6 or 7 blooms, and wouldn't you know it - it appears to be pollen sterile (no pollen is releasing from the dried anthers).  I am now trying to pollinate it with other Hulthemias to see if it will set hips.  I sure hope this isn't a "dead-end".


11 comments:

  1. Beautiful Jim. Have you tried grinding the anthers as Mr. Moore suggested? Perhaps some pollen might be released that way? Good luck!

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  2. Hi Kim,

    Thank you. Yes I have tried grinding them - no pollen evident to my eye. Nonetheless, I applied imaginary pollen from my fingertip to one of my most fertile seed parents! I had high hopes of using it extensively this year. It may yet prove to be fertile as a seed parent. At least I can hope!

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  3. I notice that the color of the blotch appears on the anthers as a fringe, picottee effect. I wonder if the anther pigment level reflects the pigment density in the blooms - that is to say that perhaps they are linked genetically and share the same regulatory genes. I'm going to have a closer look at my own huthemias to see if the have the same trait.

    I also notice that the number of anthers is much greater than usual for a hulthemia, at least those that I have. It would be interesting to see a chart comparing the number of anthers with blotch size.

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  4. Well, breeding dead end or not, it is certainly lovely in its' own right!

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  5. Hi Don,

    Thank you for your observations. There may be something about concentrating the Hulthemia traits that is impacting fertility. Fortunately this one's seed parent has great fertility both ways, however, since I often mix Hulthemia pollen (and I did in this case) I do not know who the pollen parent was. I am getting other good blotches from the seed parent, but none so far that are thornless. I will keep trying.

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  6. Hi Sally,

    Thank you for your encouraging comments.

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  7. Beautiful! I LOVE this one :-)

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  8. Thank you April. I am hopeful that although it appears to make no pollen at this young age, I think that it may be forming hips to the pollinations that I have attempted on it. If that is the case, it won't be a "dead end"!

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  9. congrat!
    not only a big blotch, but also great colour and contrast.

    cheers
    Bernhard

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  10. Beautiful rose!! I've never seen Hulthemias before.

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  11. Thank you Bernhard and Gwen.

    As it turns out, this seedling did set good hips with viable seeds. Although it only produces about 3 seeds per hip and its germination rate is only about 18%, the seedlings that it produces have been very good. One of it's seedlings for 2013 I would place in my top best 10 for this year.

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