Fading yellows

I don’t really care for yellows that fade to white. I don’t mind a little lightening around the edges but that is about it. LOL!!!

I keep thinking: do we need to go back and reinvent the wheel? Does f. persica fade at all? Have never seen it live so don’t know. Someone speculated on here that it was the HP Pernet Ducher used to make the cross that provided the fading quality.

Would it be good to attempt the cross with r. Wichurana (thornless) and f. persica and thus eliminate or lessen the thorns and then start introducing the F1’s or 2’s to modern deep yellows. I have neither parent so can’t try it.

There was an early article on yellows and their fading which Karl King has on his website. Unfortunately, the yellow recommended to breed with is no longer available. It was a hybrid tea.

I always thought , it was R Foetida who was the culprit to introduce BS in roses. If used again , just for intensifying colour, would’nt we opening a barrel of snakes and starting all over again to eliminate BS

Yellow is elusive, and it breaks down easily. Blackspot isnt exclusively foetida. It, and its strains, are varied. Its just that foetida is so saturated with blackspot that the numbers needed for health are astronomical.

If one wants saturated yellows that break down more slowly, then there are several avenues.

  1. Chorophyll. St. Patrick is barely yellow. Its a buff gold with a layer of apricot that is held for a very long time, giving the illusion of a darker yellow than it actually is.

  2. Pelargonidin. Whenever these two meet, and I wonder if its because it competes with cyanin, yellow seems to benefit to a degree. I think it is likely that the farther one stays away from cyanin-rich roses in breeding yellows, the more likely their saturation will remain.

  3. Yellow on yellow hybrids are far more likely to produce offspring that will fade less than their parents.

  4. Not all yellows are equal. Some yellows, even if their parents are not fragrant, can be surprisingly fragrant because they break down. Sometimes this is a blessing, and sometimes this is not wanted.

One does not specifically need Rosa foetida now to produce strong yellows. However, the species offers one thing that most modern yellows have – hardiness. Unfortunately, it also comes with something just as nasty as the strains of blackspot likely to be passed on – die-back.

These are all facts to consider in anyones choices when working with yellows.

I forgot to add that the Bright Smile line adds in both chlorophyll, pelargonidin and saturation. The unknown half of Bright Smile is likely Yellow Ribbon, or something very similar. You can easily identify the Cl

Thank you Jadae for all the info. Will print it out.

Jim

Jadae,

Stopped in at Trader Joe’s today and Whole Foods which are more upscale than the grocery store I usually go to which has pretty standard cut rose colors. The two today were loaded with bouquets of roses for Valentine’s Day and they had some really unusual colors and blends. Made me think of you. Don’t have the time to try and root any so didn’t buy, just looked. It was nice to see them though.

Jim

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY EVERYONE… SENDING A CANDY KISS TO ALL OF YOU! lol

Ralph frequently crossed 1-72-1 with the hulthemias and frequently had seedlings with either very small needle prickles or none at all. Very few displayed the blotch. He made a few with 0-47-19 and none of them were worth him keeping.

np, Jim. If you ever come to Portland, be sure to see New Seasons. Its a localized version of Whole Foods, but the prices are more sane, and the people are always really friendly. There is about 1 per every major section of the metro. We refer to Whole Foods as Whole Paycheck, lol, although even the thiftiest grocery stores are not getting any better at being consumer-price friendly :confused:

At any rate, if anyone out there is trying to transfer yellow from the species level to the modern level, then skipping roses heavy in cyanin is probably wise. It was written that white is good idea to use as a base, but I think time has proven this idea as poor. Roses heavy in peonin and/or pelargonidin seem to do best as base colors for introducing yellow. Its too bad because some really unusual colors were found in the original perntianas, which I think were influenced by the extremely heavy doses of cyanin bleeding through. Its a pattern one rarely sees now. The last modern creation I know that has it is Bronze Sunset, which I am guessing descends from Arizona. One can see a little of it in a mini called Golden Beryl, where the petals gain some ruddy stippling as they age and the gold color breaks down.

Nobody mentioned it- so this is much as a question than anything, but it seems to me that the fade gene is a completely separate mechanism than color and seems to be linked to fragrance (as well as phototropism)? The fade gene itself seems to be highly dominant (unlike fragrance- which seems to pop up almost randomly). I guess non-fade and fragrance are both recessive? Do I have this right?

I do have one of Moore’s hulthemia hybrids that is non-fading. Fingers crossed, I would like to get something from it- more for the non-fade yellow than a blotch.

To be entirely honest, that is the reason I purchased Jeri Jennings this year- hopefully the two will be compatible. I dunno, I have a few other yellows to play around with- apparently a non-fading yellow can pop up once in a blue moon anyways even from “yellows” that quickly fade to cream.

Scent is highly complex, genetically. Dozens of compounds contribute to scent in roses, if not hundreds. Of these, some are derived from the breakdown of the carotenoids but most are not. However, a few that do originate from carotenoids happen to be very potent fragrance compounds including, especially, beta-ionone. In this sense you could say that fragrance is ‘linked’ to fading of yellow pigments but this is not the same as saying that a ‘fade gene’ is genetically linked to fragrance genes.

The enzymes that fade yellow pigments are primarily a group known as carotenoid cleavage dioxygenases. Their reaction products are many, depend on which carotenoids are being degraded.

Enzymes are not necessary for the carotenoids to be degraded. Light, especially UV, breaks down carotenoids.

With all this in mind it really is not possible to say that a single ‘fade gene’ exists let alone establish whether it is linked to fragrance or has dominance or recessiveness.

Some of the most common fragrance compounds in roses are not related at all biochemically to the carotenoids. Think of the damasks used for perfumery, for instance - they make no yellow pigments.

So, it is quite possible to create a highly scented, non-fading, deeply pigmented yellow rose. The difficulty should be equal to that of making a highly scented rose multiplied by the difficulty of making a deeply pigmented yellow rose that does not fade. That is to say, very difficult.

Yellow Brick Road is the best I have seen to date with both scent and good tone. Its not Midas Touch yellow, but its a nice butter gold. Princess Alice can also pass on both, but it can also pass on mildew. Sunspite has both, but it tends to pass on all the traits no one is looking for, lol. Too much of Golden Masterpiece hitches along for the ride unless ya wanna play the numbers game of weeding out a lot until ya get what ya want. There’s a UK rose I have always wanted called Ards Beauty. I have no idea what it is like, but the book photos look cool. Its an f2 of Whisky Mac though, which is from the Golden Wave line. Golden Wave and Golden Masterpiece make up the bulk of the unfading yellows, and a whole lot of negative traits that came along for the ride.

I remember reading back in the 80s, I think, that Whiskey Mac was the best selling rose in the UK annually. Not that so many people “discovered” it, but all who knew it had to replace it as it froze to death every winter. Sounds exactly what you need to use, Michael! Talk about “repeat business”!

Fading yellow is usually associated, to a large extent, with fragrance. The carotene that colors the yellow flowers also may be degraded and oxidized to produce the “rose ketones” among other less fragrant essences.

There appears to be a linkage in Synstyle derivatives between the cluster-flowering habit and carotene degradation. The deepest yellow Tea-Noisettes generally have large flowers in few-flowered clusters. The cluster types may start with yellow buds, but the color fades away as perfume. Intermediate cluster types tend to be intermediate in color and fading and fragrance.

The blackspot tendency in Foetida derivatives is associated with the short-lived foliage of that species. There is also an inherited tendency to prefer growing at relatively low temperatures - which is why so many of the yellow HTs derived from Foetida suffer “winterkill”. They are too anxious to start growing in the Spring, and reluctant to stop growing in Autumn.

I think it would be a good idea to cross heat-loving yellow Teas and Tea-Noisettes with Foetida-derivatives. The former would bring in long-lived foliage and a preference for growing in heat. ‘Lawrence Johnston’ might be a starting point. I suspect that the ‘Mme. Eugene Verdier’ listed as its seed parent was the yellow Tea rather than the pink HP. ‘LJ’ certainly looks Tea-like, and very different from ‘Soleil d’Or’.

BTW: I read somewhere (but misplaced the reference) that the brilliant yellow of Foetida is due to a combination of yellow carotene and a yellowish flavonoid (a quercitin derivative). The carotene reflects yellow light at two wavelengths. The small amount of yellow reflected by the flavonoid happens to fall neatly between the two carotene peaks, thus contributing far more to the combination than we might expect seeing the flavonoid alone.

Also, some roses (e.g., Devoniensis) become a bit more yellow as the flowers age. This may be luteolin, which darkens on exposure to UV. It isn’t much, but might help maintain color as carotene and quercitin are degraded by UV.

Karl is exactly right. The yellows tend to create pithy canes do not get the time they require to harden, causing both winter damage and a proneness to dieback. I used Selfridges in some of my yellow crosses to avoid this. Its a very hard-wooded yellow. It fades and is overly linear, but it passes on other superior qualities.

btw, I have no idea what the other half of Selfridges is, but I know it isnt pure yellow. Its either yellow blend or one of those odd apricot or red blends Kordes used. I would be surprised if the unknown half was not descended from something like Golden Sun.

Aperterif has chlorophyll in its yellow, but the plant likes to climb when Fall weather hits. So if ya want a more cold hardy parent like St Patrick, then Aperterif should fill the niche. Freedom also has chlorophyll, but its pretty much a cool-weather rose. Pretty Lady, oddly enough, can produce chlorophyll in its seedlings.

Has anyone considered using R Ecae for intensifying yellow, looking at pics of various bloom stages , it seems it has strong staying power without fading. According to Hurst’s septet formulae it is diploid.

Just throwing my thoughts in, and I am not sure if it available in Australia, but if it is I would not hesitate using it for a trial.

cheers warren

R. Ecae’s derivitive, Golden Cheronese, seems healthier, and that is what a few are trying out.

I’m enjoying this discussion. Thanks for all the information y’all!

It is worth noting that carotene is a plastid pigment. The intensity of yellow coloring will be strongly influenced both by the size and the number of plastids.

For example, it may happen sometimes that two light yellow parents produce a deeper yellow offspring. If one parent has few, large plastids, while the other has many small plastids, the offspring (some of them, at least) could have an intermediate number of intermediate sized plastids - and thus be deeper yellow than either parent.

Furthermore, different forms of carotene differ in the amount of yellow light they reflect. This may explain why some of the Tea-Noisettes are deeper yellow than many yellow Teas. Rosa moschata produces much carotene, but it is degraded and oxidized to produce fragrance. If the oxidative degradation is blocked (lack of carotene-cleaving enzymes) the carotene that remains will be different from what was expressed in the Tea ancestor.

Michael wrote, “Karl is exactly right. The yellows tend to create pithy canes do not get the time they require to harden, causing both winter damage and a proneness to dieback.”

LeGrice wrote that the mauves had a strong admixture of Foetida and other colors. Browns resulted from the partial break up of the homogenization of the genes which resulted in the silvery lavender. Tom Liggett, one of the initiators of the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden and a former rose nurseryman there, stated for years that mauves were “recessive, recessive yellows”. Many of the mauves, particularly the silvery lavenders, tended to create pithy wood. Grey Pearl can. Fantan, one of the early russets and an extremely odd color, is the single pithiest plant I’ve ever grown. Clair Martin of The Huntington, has said for years, “Anything with the name Masterpiece in it is a pithy plant”. From observing them there, I’d say he was pretty right on. No wonder the “novely colors” have arrived on such awful plants so long.

Yeah, I agree, with the exception of Red Masterpiece, but the point is valid. Its definitely an uphill battle creating mauves and russets! Success is going to take time. That is for sure.