That’s really interesting NovaFlora has a rose breeding position! It sounds like the company overall has a commitment to sustainability and plant health as high priorities. With all dynamics in the rose business and much of them seemingly being a tightening of opportunities and positions, this will hopefully be the start to a lasting and valuable program.
That’s really interesting NovaFlora has a rose breeding position!
Molecular rose breeder, no less. It’s a great opportunity for somebody that has feet in both classical and molecular genetics and a solid understanding of roses.
tightening of opportunities and positions,
It’s part of a shift toward corporatization more than a tightening, I think, the continued subsuming of plant breeding into the bowels of big agribusiness. Conard/ Meilland looks smaller scale than Monsanto, Ball or Suntory but, when you consider the role that European governments play in business, maybe not as small as it appears.
I’m of the same thinking as Kim… a rose isn’t nearly as interesting to me (to use for breeding especially) if I don’t know any of its parentage. I’ve even gone so far as to buy a rose sight unseen just because of a fascinating reported parentage. I also understand that sometimes you just don’t know. And I get what Simon’s saying, I guess I just don’t have any rose I can think of that I’m so disgusted by, that just seeing their name in a pedigree would prejudice me against the offspring. But in all fairness, I tend to grow mostly species and hybrids, so if I had more experience with the “dogs” I might think more that way.
Agreed, Tom. I, too, have bought them sight unseen because they impressed me by what was behind them and I HAD to see it. Some have turned out to be truly awful (Blue Skies, at a tremendous price at the time! To name one), but most have at least been interesting, whether they remained in the garden or not. I can take this one step further…I won’t buy Joe Winchell roses, nor anything bred from one of his roses because of the extreme inbreeding he routinely practiced. I’ve grown enough of his roses and encountered even more of them in other gardens in a climate far more conducive to HT culture than this one, to know I don’t want them. Ralph stated several times Harm Saville inbred to the point he had to change his breeding lines due to too many recessive-recessives. I’ve not really cared for any of his roses I’ve grown, either. Kim
I think the current seedling I’ve put on HMF is a good example of this as well… it’s out of ‘Alice Amos’ which is out of foetida ‘bicolor’… In Australia (at least) that would make most people run a mile… but the proof will be in how it performs in the field in a few different areas rather than by its pedigree… it is like me as a teacher condemning a child because I didn’t like his Dad.
I’ve never out right condemned a rose because of it’s lineage. Well with the exception of ones that I know won’t take my winters. But even some of those I’m planning on giving a trial run this spring. The only way to know if a rose will be good in your garden is to grow it. I had Midas Touch and it was lousy, finally died over winter and good riddance. My cousin lives one block over and at the other end of the street and hers is GORGEOUS!
Simon…
As with everything roses “It depends”, since my summers are so hot and come on quickly, I wouldn’t care if a rose had foetida ‘bicolor’ in it’s linage because the bs spores are not active at high temps, but if the rose had other characteristics that I think are needed for this garden, I would jump to get the rose.
I agree that the only way you know if a rose will be good in your garden is to grow it in your garden, even then siting of the rose will make a difference … that’s why Green Ice was in that container four years. It took four tries to find the right spot for the rose.
I am currently growing two plants of Ralph’s Creeper. The first one is planted near the top of a slope where I had hoped it would spread out and cover the slope. The second plant is planted down in the main rose garden as a ground cover about 20’ lower. The first plant has an upright growth habit because it gets afternoon shade earlier than the second plant. The second plant spread 6’ the first year I planted it and grows in full, hot sun. The only time it looks good is in early summer and fall because the blooms crisp so quickly.
Kim told me one time that Ralph Moore used Angel Face in his breeding simply because he had it. AF is generally considered to be a weak plant, but that didn’t stop him.
Since I know how much testing goes into bringing a rose to market I know that many roses may have something in it’s linage to tell me to run, but that’s not enough to keep me from trying a rose, unless I have had the experience Kim reported in his post.
So … it depends.
Smiles,
Lyn
I’m with Lyn, Simon - foetida bicolor close in the lineage isn’t necessarily a turn-off to me. And we get blackspot awful here. Foetida has enough interesting traits that I’m always curious to see its babies. Even though I lost it (primarily from severe blackspotting), ‘Lawrence Johnston’ was one I’d buy again as a disposable breeder. It had the sweet foliage scent, great yellow flower color and the foetida floral scent which to me is not unpleasant at all.
I have a rose I have been using as both a seed and pollen parent called White Heritage. The rose was purchased about 2001 from Del Real Nursery in Caldwell, Texas. The rose is a sport of Heritage that the owner found growing on the nursery property and propogated and sold. To my knowledge it was never registered. This is not the same White Heritage/Rose Marie from David Austin.
My question, if I have anything that I might one day want to register, how would I specify the parentage? It is a beautiful ivory white rose with a wonderful fragrance, I am using with the hope of passing on the fragrance.
Hi Joan;
Because it is unregistered, you would list that parent as sport of Heritage.
cheers Warren
Or, you could create a page for it with all that information, including that it is listed simply because it is the parent of your rose. Since it’s likely a chimera, its genes would be the same as Heritage, so you COULD probably accurately report it as “Heritage” being the parent. Kim