Today I finished bringing the 2013 seeds parents into the greenhouse. I will be using at least this many additional seed parents outdoors, however, I like to bring the ones that I will be mainly focusing on into the greenhouse.
The seedlings are continuing to sprout at a very rapid pace. Today there were 13,392. You may be wondering, "did he really count them all?" Well not quite. For the early germinators, I just counted the seedlings that had clearly sprouted since I last counted them. However, for the later germinating groups I did count them all. I will probably only do one more count - and that will only be of seedling lots that still haven't germinated well. So why count them at all? Each year I like to evaluate germination rates especially of seedlings that set hips well that I haven't used for breeding yet. Since germination rates are sometimes 0% even when hundreds of seeds are planted of a particular variety, I do not want to waste time doing crosses on those roses.
The rose forest is beginning to grow.
Although the image hasn't changed much since last week, total germinations have more than doubled. To date there have been 7,408 rose seedlings to sprout this year and more to come.
Today I counted the first sprouts of the year - there are 2,968 so far from the 58,966 seeds that were planted last month. At this stage, it is quite evident that some seed parents produce seedlings that germinate much earlier than others. Some have already germinated too thickly. Seen below are seedlings coming from the variety known as 'Darlow's Enigma'. The seeds in this area should have been planted less densely. This group will have to be culled rather hard to avoid a total jumbled mess. Next year my goal is to plant about half the number of seeds (that is if I can resist doing "just one more cross").
With some of the other seed parents however, there have been no germinations, but I know that will change. Some of the later germinating seed parents have a very high germination rate.
In any case, this place will be all in bloom in about 10 weeks.
