My four Cal Polys finally hit their stride this year. I’ve been pollinating them with many things and all seem to be taking. I’m impressed with how quickly they show progress. These hips begin to swell almost immediately and, so far, none appear to be failing. The plant just keeps on pushing out the blooms while they do.
I worried I had too many hips setting on the plants, so yesterday I collected all the pollen possible from them and removed all the flowers which appeared to have set themselves. That pollen began releasing early this morning. I did nothing special, just left the anthers in the baby food jar overnight. After it warmed up this morning, pollen shed in clouds! I am really impressed with how easily this rose is to work. I also love the deep, bright, golden orange pollen because it is not only very easy to see on the jar sides, but also once applied to the stigma of the seed parent. When you apply this stuff, you can SEE it! This is a very satisfying rose to breed with. It’s going to be interesting seeing the results!
Kim, I tend to like to believe the plants know what they are doing and what their limits are when it comes to how many hips any one plant can support… but I still do as you have done and strip all the OP hips off some roses that seem to have lots of planned hips on it. I don’t know whether it makes any difference or not but it sure makes me feel better Only problem I’ve found is that it makes the planned ones left on the bush more vulnerable to ‘predation’. When they are like a sardine in a big school they are less likely to be snacked on. ‘Mutabilis’ was like this for me this year. I must have trimmed off a thousand OP hips from it this year but I didn’t do it until just last week when I harvested the planned hips (for some reason I am REALLY looking forward to seeing what these ‘Mutabilis’ x ‘The Fairy’ seedlings will look like). ‘Softee’ makes so many OP hips for me here that I usually prune all the OPs off to just leave the planned hips (well… I don’t actually let the hips form… I just dead head more thoroughly). She’s been a real good Mum this year for some reason. My ‘Bullseye’ also makes so many OP hips that I usually trim them all off. I figure that by trimming them off the resources meant for them can be rechanneled into my planned hips instead and I’ll get better seeds from it… I usually only do it fore the smaller plants and let the bigger ones make their own minds up. Is there any evidenced to support this?
You thin fruit to not only reduce the stress on the tree, but improve the quality of the fruit, right? I can imagine stresses on the plants would be high elsewhere due to the heat many are experiencing. My Cal Polys are potted in three gallon cans, in moisture control soil and even they require thrice weekly watering. I would imagine the potential for carrying the hips I have attempted to create would be greater by reducing the extra stresses on the plants. Granted, when severely stressed, many plants will generate many hips in an effort to perpetuate the species before they die. Joe Winchell often stimulated reluctant seed setters to form and carry hips by root pruning, reducing water and stressing them to “think” they were going to die. Old apricot and peach trees frequently set massive fruit quantities in their last years.
With such willing, even enthusiastic seed setters, it just seems logical that providing them all their needs to carry the seed full term would result in greater set, more viable set. I guess germination this coming spring will tell the rest of the story.
I get about 6-7 seeds per hip with ‘Cal Poly’ and germination around 60%. Mr. Moore recommended that I use it in my Hulthemia breeding, and he was right that it does a good job accepting the blotch. Last year I also used it with ‘First Impression’ and have several seedlings with good yellow saturation.
Regarding fruit size - I don’t care. I’d rather get more seeds than fruit! I think that where fruit trees are concerned, pruning helps to limit the number of fruit and allows the fruit that do develop to get larger. Unpruned fruit trees will tend to set a lot of smaller fruit (produce more seeds!), which as you know, is why it is best to only lightly prune seed parents.
Hi Simon,
I don’t know about scientific evidence for limiting the number of OP hips on your seed parents, however, I have noticed that most seed parents when loaded with hips, will start aborting new crosses, which doesn’t happen when there are no or few hips competing for resources. I always remove blooms that I don’t get the chance to pollinate on my important seed parents (early in the season). Later in the season I don’t worry about them.
Thanks for the information, Jim! I’m kind of tired of dealing with all the tiny seeds and the thoughts of fewer and larger ones with better germination sounds really good! More dwarf plants would be good, too.
Jim, I know this bit is for Simon, but it will come in handy for me come our Summer or when the plants want to flush. Thank you.
I don’t know about scientific evidence for limiting the number of OP hips on your seed parents, however, I have noticed that most seed parents when loaded with hips, will start aborting new crosses, which doesn’t happen when there are no or few hips competing for resources. I always remove blooms that I don’t get the chance to pollinate on my important seed parents (early in the season). Later in the season I don’t worry about them.
Only problem I’ve found is that it makes the planned ones left on the bush more vulnerable to ‘predation’. When they are like a sardine in a big school they are less likely to be snacked on. ‘Mutabilis’ was like this for me this year. I must have trimmed off a thousand OP hips from it this year but I didn’t do it until just last week when I harvested the planned hips (for some reason I am REALLY looking forward to seeing what these ‘Mutabilis’ x ‘The Fairy’ seedlings will look like). ‘Softee’ makes so many OP hips for me here that I usually prune all the OPs off to just leave the planned hips (well… I don’t actually let the hips form… I just dead head more thoroughly). She’s been a real good Mum this year for some reason. My ‘Bullseye’ also makes so many OP hips that I usually trim them all off. I figure that by trimming them off the resources meant for them can be rechanneled into my planned hips instead and I’ll get better seeds from it… I usually only do it fore the smaller plants and let the bigger ones make their own minds up. Is there any evidenced to support this?