Thursday, May 23, 2013

Hybridizing Season Finally Slowing Down

Well, it's been nearly a month since my last post.  Life has been busy at the Sproul Rose Farm.  Most of the crosses for this year have been completed.  I decided that I wanted to reduce my crosses by 50% this year compared to last year since I had too many seedlings.  I only have about 175 more crosses to go until I hit my goal of 2,500 crosses.  There are lots of hips forming.

As mentioned in an earlier post, evaluating seedlings for the first time outside is an important time.  Here are photos of 2 of my favorites.  This first one is a mini Hulthemia with single petalled blooms, that is very floriferous and appears quite clean.


The next photo below is of another very floriferous seedling.  This one is a larger shrub and is a cross of 'Thrive!'s mother X 'Double Knock Out'.  It starts as a darker pink and then fades to a lighter pink before the petals fall.  The petals never get "dirty" looking.  This one also appears very clean.  I can imagine a multi-colored effect in a mass planting.


One of the things that I like to do later in the rose breeding season is to select a few of the best new Hulthemia seedlings from this year to use as pollen parents.  I mix the pollen in hopes that the best possibilities have a chance to occur.  This last photo below is of some of the new seedlings from which I harvested their anthers.  The 2 pink ones are repeat blooming "Basye's Thornless" Hulthemia seedlings.  The red ones are from 'Thrive!' Hulthemia crosses and the yellow one is from a cross involving a very clean seedling that came from a cross 3 years ago with 'Thrive!'s seed parent.  All of these should have very clean genes.

9 comments:

  1. Hi Jim! After following you with plenty of interest from Italy for many years, I manage to buy one of your roses Eyeconic via the roses breeder Meilland - richardier. Yellow colour, even if I realize that you offer it in many other colours. I really can' t wait to see it blooming in my garden! Luigi

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  2. Hi Luigi,

    Thank you for your comments! It is possible that the Eyeconic rose that you got from Meilland is a rose bred by Meilland. I understand that they have introduced a rose named "Eyeconic" which is separate from the series of "Eyeconic Lemonade" roses that Star Roses and Plants is marketing. It also is a Hulthemia and should be fun to work with. Meilland is evaluating some of my seedlings, but I do not know whether they have decided to market them.

    Best wishes in your own breeding program!

    Jim

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  3. Good to see you posting again. 2,500 crosses!!! I thought my 154 black magic hips was nutty. You have your work cut out for you in october.

    Two great roses you have there. Very floriferous. I see a giant pink and white canopy of color in the Star test fields very soon.

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  4. I love the mini hulthemia at the top. Pretty! :-)

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  5. Hi Dave,

    Yeah, I suppose 2,500 seems like a lot, but definitely down from the 5,000 that I did last year. You should have a lot to look at from just your 'Black Magic' crosses. What were your pollen parents that you used with 'Black Magic'? No doubt you have a bunch of others also in the works! Do you have many hips on 'Aloha'? I have made 3 pollinations so far on the 'Aloha' that you sent me. Thanks again for that one. It has an excellent yellow color that holds very well.

    Thanks for your comments - I hope that your prediction holds true! ;)

    Hi Aprille,

    Thank you, it is probably my best overall mini Hulthemia with respect to floriferousness and cleanliness.

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  6. Ops, a bit of a blunder! I am sorry, but the identical name got me wrong. So, two different varieties with the same name? What a confusion! Maybe they thought Europe and America are far enough, but the ocean has disappeared now with the net! I hoped to have your rose, maybe one day Star Rosed and Plants will sell in Europe too! Cheers! Luigi

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  7. On black magic I put forgiveness, rock and roll, 4th of july, rollercoaster, flash night, this seedling http://davesroses.blogspot.com/2013/04/eureka.html these two seedlings from last years crosses http://davesroses.blogspot.com/2013_05_01_archive.html , canoodling, george burns, jolene adams, dick clark. I am hoping that dick clarks disease resistance will come through and the stripes from its 4th of july parentage. There are a bunch of other stripped seedlings from last year but I cant seem to figure out how to get a link for the individual photo from the blog. Aloha just a couple of 4th of july and rollercoaster. I am planning on adding more with rock and roll on the second bloom cycle.Unfortunately RNR blooms long before aloha so keeping pollen for it is difficult. Forgiveness X blk magic, flash night and one of my seedlings from last year. http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=21.212864
    I also did about 20 RNR X black magic, flash night, forgiveness.

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  8. Jim I was listening to a lecture that Jolene Adams gave to us at our santa clara rose society on hybridizing years ago. She said if you are thinking of collecting a bunch of pollen from different plants and applying it...No, roses dont work like that. Its one rose and one rose only. I was thinking about doing a test. A solid rose with no hulthemia or stripes in its parentage and applying striped and hulthemia pollen together in a jar and applying it to that solid colored rose. If we get some hulthemias and striped roses from the one hip then we will have our answer. Have you tested this out before by any chance.

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  9. Hi Luigi, No worries!

    Hi Dave, Sounds like some fun seedlings!

    Regarding mixing pollen, one pollen grain fertilizes to produce one seed. However, if you apply mixed pollen, you can expect that seedlings coming from the same hip may have different pollen parents (in your example, some with stripes and some with blotches, but not striped with blotches on the same seedling).

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