I decided to keep better records this year so that I do not fall into the habit of repeating crosses that do not work. Overall I made 630 crosses and 305 have resulted in harvestable hips. (I’m assuming that if they have made it this far they will make it to maturity.) My overall success rate was just under 50%. It definitely varied depending upon the seed parent used. It should go up, once I have figured out whch roses make good seed parents.
The better seed parents were:
Morden Sunrise 70% success
Gemini 66%
Loving Touch 70%
Fairhope 78%
Earthsong 100%
Prairie Harvest 100%
Folksinger 77%
Golden Unicorn 81%
Outta the Blue 75%
Ebb Tide 83%
Soroptimist International 100%
The seed parents that were a big disapointment were:
Alex MacKenzie (worked well for me several years ago)
Aunt Honey
Hawkeye Belle
Music Maker
Moostone
The McCartney Rose
Tournament of Roses
My Cal Poly plants were sufferrng this year having to compete with some rather large hostas. I’m moving them and they should be happier next year.
About Face was probably the pollen parent that was the most fussy. The first batch of pollen from AF resulted in aborted hips. Subsequent batches seemed to work OK. Ebb Tide was another one that gave me problems as a pollen parent. Most of the hips involving it as the pollen parent were aborted.
Here are the individual crosses that were made, which resulted in harvestable hips. Number of hips are in ().
07-01 Loving Touch x Baby Love (8)
07-02 Loving Touch x Home Run (5)
07-03 Loving Touch x JP Connell (1)
07-04 Loving Touch x John Cabot (7)
07-05 Loving Touch x William Baffin (9)
07-06 Loving Touch x Everest Double Fragrance (2)
07-07 Loving Touch x Julia Child (2)
07-08 Loving Touch x Blue Moon (2)
07-09 Loving Touch x A. MacKenzie (1)
07-10 Cal Poly x Home Run (2)
07-11 Cal Poly x John Cabot (5)
07-12 Cal Poly x Henry Kelsey (4)
07-13 Cal Poly x 06-27-2 (Morden Sunrise x Home Run) (2)
07-14 Cal Poly x Prairie Sunrise (1)
07-15 Cal Poly x Julia Child (2)
07-16 Cal Poly x A. MacKenzie (2)
07-17 Cal Poly x probably explorers (tags were eaten) (11)
07-18 Morden Sunrise x Ebb Tide (3)
07-19 Morden Sunrise x Roller Coaster (14)
07-20 Morden Sunrise x About Face (10)
07-21 Morden Sunrise x Distant Drums (6)
07-22 Morden Sunrise x Everest Double Fragrance (4)
07-23 Morden Sunrise x Caf