First blooms photo

I took my seeds out of the fridge later than usual this year, so the first blooms are coming later than in the past. Here are three of my first first blooms of 2005. The most exciting is the pink polyantha in the center. That is the first bloom from one of the seedlings in my chromosome doubling experiment. The parentage is Baby Faurax X (Renae X unknown). The other two are seedlings of American Honor X Sun Flare. All three of these babies are healthy and vigorous.

Hi Jim,

Wow, they are beautiful! Is your goal to generate triploids with your doubled ‘Baby Frauax’ crosses? Renae is diploid. Do you suspect the male is diploid as well? This past summer I started focusing on generating triploids and plan on doing more crossing in this direction this summer. I like that they tend to be more vigorous than tetraploids, yet bloom substance and size tends to be better than diploids. It seems to be a good compromize for landscape roses especially.

Sincerely,

David

I wanted to include a fertile diploid in my experiment to test the belief that the more infertile the diploid, the more fertile the amphidiploid, and vice versa. I used Baby Faurax because I think it is a fertile diploid, although I don’t know that anyone has counted its chromosomes. The treated Baby Faurax produced seeds and seedlings when crossed with both diploids and tetraploids, so the treatment didn’t harm its fertility. Hopefully, I’ll be able to count the seedling’s chromosomes someday. Whatever its ploidy, I like it a lot.

I’m more excited about the seedlings I got from crosses using Mermaid and its sport Little Mermaid. I used Mermaid for several years without getting a single seed, so I’m thrilled about the seedlings I got from it this year. I’m hoping that they will start blooming soon.

Harkness used Baby Faurex quite a bit. I think from the direction the parentage was cited that he felt it was diploid as well. Look at Little Lady and Frank Naylor. The first half of the pollen parent is “presumably” 2+2 x 2+2 and is obviously fertile as a tetraploid many generations down the road (2nd half of pollen parent to seed parent and the total hybirds progeny, too). So, Id guess diploid or really nice luck lol. I suppose maybe triploid but I doubt it.

I confirmed ‘Baby Frauax’ and it is diploid.

David

The polyantha is especially beautiful… a dark dusky pink. How’s the fragrance?

I’ve used Renae’s pollen on older hybrid teas such as Sutter’s Gold and Renae. The best seedling is a tiny flowered orangey carmin very fragrant seedling from Sutter’s Gold. I suspect it to be a triploid, nonetheless I am trying to breed from it. It has some characteristics I’m looking for (fragrance and thornlessness) but the necks are very weak.

I crossed it recently with Cecil Brunner in hopes of getting fertility on the diploid level, and fragrance.

Thanks, Enrique. The polyantha has a little fragrance. Its color is a bit darker than it appears in the photo.

David, thanks for the information on the ploidy of Baby Faurax.