Not quite July, and the first hips ripened with the heat we’ve been having. The first cleaned seed tonight were from:
DLFED3 X (Indian Love Call X 1-72-1)
DLFED3 X Little Butterfly
DLFED3 X Mutabilis
DLFED3 X (1-72-1 x Hugonis)
Lynnie X R. Fedtschenkoana
(1-72-1 X Hugonis) X R. Fedtschenkoana
(1-72-1 X Hugonis) X Magic Wand
(1-72-1 X Hugonis) X Little Butterfly
CPDLFED2 self
CPDLFED X (Inner Wheel X 0-47-19)
Kim
Wow, and I thought I was seeing things when I noticed some hips coloring up so well, but nothing quite ready yet.
Amazing what heat does, isn’t it? The other, “non species” crosses are swelling (at least those the danged squirrel hasn’t eaten or which haven’t aborted because of uprooting the cans to get them planted in the ground) and a few are beginning to show a bit of color. I’m actually kind of happy for the abortions. I tend to go a “little overboard” when wearing my ‘bee suit’! LOL! Kim
But—don’t you go a little overboard knowing that not all will pan out? Anyway that is my story and I’m stickin’to it.
Yeah, what you said! LOL! No, actually, I’m honestly a little surprised and disappointed when a cross doesn’t take. I’ve already experienced a too-successful year and that one put me out of the pollinating business for six years. My refridgerator was full of bags of seeds, some actually planted individually in peat pellets, some not. That year was such an overload, none of them ever got planted. Now, I have fewer than a quarter of the roses I once had and they’ve been stressed enough to prevent many from accepting pollen and setting seed. Now, I guess, I sew my wild oats…and pray for crop failure! LOL! Kim
Congratulations Kim. I’m following your advice and collecting OP hips this year and have some that seem to be nearing maturity. I have two questions. 1. How do you know they are mature? Some of mine have been swollen and large for a week or two. 2. What will you do with the harvested seeds? Will you store them until next spring or will you bring them to germination this season?
Thanks,
Scott
Hi Scott, thank you! I also collected DLFED3 X Midnight Blue, which excites me after viewing what Paul Barden created out of the Orangeade X Fed. with Midnight Blue. These also contain Basye’s Legacy which should do some pretty wonderful things with the Midnight Blue genes!
There are several ways to know when they are ready for harvest. The most pressing to me is when the bloody (hopefully soon!) squirrel starts eating them. The most usual, though, is to remember they are fruit. Many will begin changing color and texture from the more translucent appearance to a woodier one. Some turn actual colors like apples (to which they are related) do. You may also watch the point of abscission, the joint below the peduncle where spent flowers and ripened or aborted fruit naturally separate and fall off. A membrane will form at that joint and the peduncle may begin changing color and appearance from green growing look to a more yellow, “spent” look. Hopefully, that makes sense. The point of abscission is defined as “the natural detachment of parts of a plant, typically dead leaves and ripe fruit” (Oxford Dictionaries on line).
If you observe that joint a while on a variety of roses, you can quickly learn what to look for. A gentle ‘chiropractic adjustment’ to the point of abscission can also show you when they are getting ready. Put your thumb against that joint, then using your other fingers, gently bend the cane at that joint, keeping the pressure of your thumb against the joint. If the hip is nearing maturity or at least the point where the plant is going to drop it, the joint will easily separate. If it requires effort to separate the joint, it’s probably not as ready as it will become. When the squirrel begins taking them before I get to them, I take them anyway. I figure if anything germinates from them, I’m ahead. I would have gotten nothing if he got them first.
You probably have a number of them at varying stages of maturity already. Study what’s there on your plants and notice how they differ in appearance from one another. Test them with your fingers to see if they are ready to release and it will show you what to look for rather quickly.
I can’t really plant the seed here until late November as that’s when our heat begins to subside. Planting them earlier makes it difficult to keep them from drying out frequently which can interrupt germination. I clean the seed, mostly just by shelling it. Very little hip material remains on the seed with the varieties I’m using. If getting them clean is an issue, I use the blender and some Comet to liquefy the hips, then rinse them well in a strainer under the faucet. Dry them on paper toweling until they are thoroughly dry. I put them in snack size zip lock bags with plastic tags to identify the crosses and hold them in the refrigerator until I can plant. Keeping them cold seems to inhibit the mold from growing on the dry seed and provides the cold some of them require to germinate. Quite often, many will begin germinating in the dry baggie. Others, won’t, but that doesn’t seem to matter. I prefer they not germinate as it makes planting them more time consuming.
I live just over the mountain from Los Angeles. We will usually have heat spikes here until about Thanksgiving. I have often found the week of Thanksgiving most convenient to plant as there shouldn’t be many (if any) days above the mid seventies after that. The chances of night temps dropping below the mid thirties are virtually nil, so that isn’t an issue. Our rains can begin any time after then, so watering isn’t the continual issue as it is earlier in the year. I guess I COULD plant earlier and have to keep an eye on them for water, but why?
You don’t need freezer quality plastic bags to hold them, so name brands aren’t necessary. I use First Street brand because I can get a box of 150 count for about $3.50. That permits me to collect 150 crosses as I combine all the seed from the same cross in one bag to keep the number of bags to a minimum and help me get all the seed from each cross planted together.
If more seed is harvested from a cross already collected, the new seed is added to the previously collected ones. I just make sure anything I add to the bag is dry and acceptably clean as the original ones were. Does that help? Kim