Sunday, November 24, 2013

2013 Rose Breeding Season Winding Down

The rose breeding season is quickly winding down for 2013.  All of the hips have been harvested, most of the lesser desirable seedlings culled, and seedling beds are being prepped for the removal of the surviving seedlings.

The weather has continued to cool such that the Hulthemia blotches are at their darkest.  In fact, the blotch of the seedling highlighted in the Invisible Revealed post, where I mentioned that for the first time in that seedling's life that I was finally able to see that it was a Hulthemia, has continued to darken.


With the petals removed, it is very easy to see the blotch now.  It is amazing to think that as a young seedling, the blotch was not evident at all.


The above seedling is expected to have rather larger blooms as can be seen when compared to other Hulthemia seedings as shown below.  All of those in the following photo have some "clean genes" that will hopefully help to clean up the group from black spot.  The larger white seedling and smaller white seedling both have mixed Knock Out pollen (I collected and mixed pollen coming from 'Knock Out', 'Double Knock Out', 'Sunny Knock Out', and 'Milwaukee Calatrava') as their pollen parent.  The smaller white seedling's seed parent was 'Eyeconic Pomegranate Lemonade' to which it owes it's superior heat stable blotch.  The thornless coral pink seedling in the upper left corner is from a cross of "O352-1" X "Basye's Thornless".  "O352-1" has been highlighted elsewhere in this blog (The Largest Blotch - A Deadend and Hulthemia Fertility - Update on Seedling "O352").  The yellow seedling is the result of a complex Hulthemia seedling crossed with a very clean Hulthemia half-sister of 'Thrive!'.


Though most of the culling is done, about half of the remaining seedlings will have to go.  As the blotches darken, it is more difficult to cull seedlings with good blotches.  I'm not sure whether this next one will survive the last round of culling.....








Sunday, November 10, 2013

Moving Toward Cleaner Minis

Miniature roses are not known for their cleanliness.  There is much room for improving the health of this class of roses.  This has been a goal of mine for several years, but initially I was only addressing powdery mildew resistance.  One of my favorite mini seedlings is named 'Pearl Sanford'.  Although it has very good powdery mildew resistance, like most minis, it is very susceptible to black spot.

Therefore, 'Pearl Sanford', which happens to be an excellent seed parent, has been crossed with two lines of roses that have very good black spot resistance.  The first shown below is a cross of 'Pearl Sanford' X "Basye's Thornless" (aka "Basye's Legacy").  This is a brand new seedling from this year.  It only has 8-10 petals, but has taller buds than most "Basye's Thornless" seedlings and it's petals unfurl nicely.  It sets hips very readily and this coming year I will be testing it's germination rate.


The second seedling is a cross of 'Pearl Sanford' X 'Double Knock Out'.  I didn't expect to get much from this cross, however, this seedling has very full blooms with fairly good form.  It gets some powdery mildew when conditions are right, but does not get severe infections.  It appears to not set hips, however, it produces at least some pollen.


I am hoping that by combining these two lines, I will be able to get an exhibition mini that combines good powdery mildew resistance with better horizontal black spot resistance.  Since I will not be making crosses between these two until next Spring, the first seedlings will not sprout until 2015.  This hobby has a way of developing patience!