Saturday, September 15, 2012

2012 Harvest

Harvest is almost finished. Most of the rose hips are at least starting to change color, from green to yellow/orange, but some have remained green. Nevertheless, I have been ready to harvest, so ready or not.....

 The tags that were used to mark the crosses are discarded when the hips are harvested. I did more crosses this year than I had intended, but I think that happens nearly every year.


Some varieties may still appear green on the outside of the hips despite being ripe on the inside. In the second photo below of hips of K58-1, you can easily see the orange (ripe) coloring beneath the surface where the peduncles have been snapped off.



One of the Hulthemias I had to harvest a bit early. It has had an apparent bad case of “dieback” (I mentioned this trait last year in “Hulthemia Traits, the Good and the Bad”. Most Hulthemia varieties do not suffer from dieback, but for those that do, it can be quite severe. In this case, it appears to have killed the plant. Earlier this Spring, it set hips very nicely and all of them were developing as expected and then, all of a sudden, the plant appeared to just die! All of the shriveled hips were harvested in hopes that something would germinate next year.



I suspect that a fungus is responsible for the dieback. In the photos below, you can see blacken areas on the canes. This apparent fungus seems to kill the canes similar to the way that downy mildew kill canes, by girdling them. It seems to be present during the hottest weather rather than in cooler weather when downy mildew is active. I have no idea what it is.



The Hulthemia highlighted in the post referenced above in “Hulthemia Traits, the Good and the Bad”, has the code name O225-1. Although it gets a bit of dieback, it survives it and puts on a nice display. The photo of it as seen below was taken on 9-9-12. It clearly has good heat stability since the blotch hasn’t faded in our very hot Summer of 2012. This one produces hips with an alligator skin surface (seen further down), and has a good germination rate.



There are always a few crosses that are unsuccessful. These do not produce hips, but instead turn brown and dry-up on the plant. This failed cross (seen below), was not unexpected since the pollen parent was Rosa minutifolia. Of the several crosses that I made with it, only one hip formed on ‘Pearl Sanford’. However hopeful that I may be for that cross to be successful, I am taking bets that none of the seedlings that germinate (if any do!), will be true hybrids with R. minutifolia. Only one other time have I seen a hip produced with pollen from R. minutifolia and all of the seedlings that sprouted were clearly not hybrids, indicating that the seeds probably resulted from self pollination. The hip can be seen below in my set-up for sorting hips. It is the single hip in the pot all the way to the right.



7 comments:

  1. Wow! That is a lot of tags! Do you refrigerate your hips over winter then extract seeds in spring? I have heard it done both ways with the seeds extracted then refrigerated over winter. Do you cover the hips or leave them uncovered as shown above? I play a little bit with making crosses just for fun, but would like to achieve a higher rate of success--especially with growing-on once the seeds germinate. Seems like it can be too much water then too little....hard to control.

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  2. P.S. 0225-1 is a gorgeous thing! Love it--alligator hips and all!

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  3. Hi Sally,

    I pick all of the hips and refrigerate them. Then, usually in late October, the seeds are shelled and returned to the refrigerator for another 2 months, then planted in the green house. I do not cover the pollinated blooms, but let them form out in the open. Thank you for your comments on O225-1. I will be using it more heavily as a pollen parent in the coming hybridizing season.

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  4. Thanks for the additional information on storing/refrigerating rose hips! I will be eager to see the offspring of 0225-1...the bloom color is wonderful & the hips unique!

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  5. Pour la maladie de vos rosiers : il s'agit du chancre !

    j'ai eu le problème. Depuis que j'ai pulvérisé à la bouillie bordelaise, cela va mieux.
    Françoise

    (écrit en français.)

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  6. Hi Jim, I'm looking for something different, kind of primitive looking, single or nearly so, and not too big to go in a planting that will highlight R. minutifolia 'Pure Bea' (the white-flowered form) and its potential new friend. What is the foliage like on Eyeconic Pomegranate Lemonade? I'm wondering if it would look nice near R. minutifolia, which doesn't look very rose-like at first glance.

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  7. Hi Francoise - thank you for your insights.

    Hi Tessie - Pomegranate has smaller foliage and plant is compact, which is why Star Roses decided to call it a "mini". The blooms are rather large though for a mini.

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