After some of my parent plants finished their first flush, I decided that I wasn’t going to use later flushes, and started disbudding them. I usually use the first two or three flushes, and don’t bother to disbud parent plants. Does anyone else disbud? Does it have any effect on hip set?
I think it can take some of the stress of the plant to disbud later OP hips. On the other hand I also think it can help to keep the rose in the reproductive phase to leave them. I access each plant on a case by case basis.
Jim, I usually pollinate the first two flushes of blooms. After that, I usually disbud later blooms, especially on seed parents that I am trying to increase in size.
As for hip set, after the first flushes, I haven’t noticed any benefit or harm leaving or removing blooms.
I have definitely noted that the crosses from the first flush nearly always produce a larger number of seeds per hip.
Jim Sproul
Another thing that I do that you probably do too, is to disbud any blooms in the first two flushes that opened too fast, or that I missed pollinating. My thought is that I am concentrating all of the energy into the hips that were pollinated by me rather than sharing some of the energy with ‘OP’ hips.
Jim Sproul
I used to do that but don’t bother anymore. Many seed parents will stop blooming anyway, and those that continue after well pollinated don’t seem bothered by the continued bloom. I figure that if they think they can afford the energy, then they probably know their own limitations!
Paul
I cant answer the question. I use a little bit of various plants and let them bloom like normal afterwards. I want the best of both worlds haha-- a nice garden and seedlings. Im also a student which means I dont have the means for raising a bajillion seedlings. I dont even want to think of how long that would take! o_O