Germinations

I’ve had about 800 germinations so far, mostly from last summer’s pollinations, but over 100 from the previous year’s seeds. I’m excited about some of the previous year’s crosses that had no germinations in their first year, including:

Sunsprite X Mermaid

Sunsprite X R. californica

Some of this year’s seedlings that I’m excited about are:

Antike '89 X Playboy

Carefree Beauty X Pink Parfait

Danae X Duchesse de Brabant

Duchesse de Brabant X Danae

Fru Dagmar Hastrup X Danae

Lilac Charm X Angel Face

Magenta X Maria Callas

Mons. Tillier X Duchesse de Brabant

Mons. Tillier X Mutabilis

Schoener’s Nutkana X Coral Dawn

Sonia X New Zealand

Rose de Rescht X Tuscany Superb

Tuscany Superb X Rose de Rescht

Sounds very exciting!

I have the grave disappointment of having no germinations

so far this year. I put the seeds in seed starter and

cover with plastic in the frig for three months. Then I take

them out under lights in my 65 degree basement.

Last year I had hundreds of sprouts by now.

This year I did few crosses and have only about 100

seeds, but still having no sprouts is depressing.

The forum looks great! Thanks again Jim.

And germinations are really taking off now. I planted all of my seeds between 12/29/01 and 1/2/02.

One direction that I have been going is to develop novel single petalled roses. To do this, I felt that I needed to develop a highly fertile and desirable single seed parent to use for bringing in other traits.

Last year, I selected 9 seedlings of a cross of ‘Halo Today’ X [‘Geisha’ X (‘Tobo’ X ‘Singin’ in the Rain’)]. These were selected first because they were interesting in themselves and then secondly, because they produced tons of open-pollinated hips. Before using new seedlings as seed parents, I always like to check them first for germination. Among these 9 siblings (only 8 produced good hips), germinations so far are as follows:

Seedlings Seed Parent Pollen Parent Hips Seeds Seeds per Hip

44 E5-1 OP’ 82 627 7.65

4 E5-2 OP’ 12 54 4.50

2 E5-3 OP’ 8 66 8.25

14 E5-4 OP’ 11 62 5.64

11 E5-5 OP’ 10 76 7.60

74 E5-6 OP’ 22 251 11.41

10 E5-7 OP’ 24 169 7.04

142 E5-9 OP’ 13 284 21.85

As you can see, seedling E5-9 not only has the best germination rate - 50% already!, it also produces the largest number of seeds per hip. That will make each pollination more productive. The reason why I planted so many seeds of E5-1 is that it was a very desirable, vigorous single seedling that produced lots of hips but just kept on blooming. Time well tell whether the great germinator also produces desirable offspring. It may not, which is part of the challenge and fun of this hobby!

Jim

Jim,

Congratulations on the fertility of E5-9! FYI, browsers normally take ‘extra’ blanks out of text before displaying it. There are several ways to get columnar data to line up correctly in the browser. One is to enclose it between the and tags. For example:



Seedlings Seed Parent Pollen Parent Hips Seeds Seeds per Hip

44 E5-1 OP’ 82 627 7.65

4 E5-2 OP’ 12 54 4.50

2 E5-3 OP’ 8 66 8.25

14 E5-4 OP’ 11 62 5.64

11 E5-5 OP’ 10 76 7.60

74 E5-6 OP’ 22 251 11.41

10 E5-7 OP’ 24 169 7.04

142 E5-9 OP’ 13 284 21.85

I should add that only works with recent browser versions. A safer way is to make an html table using , etc. That will work with older browser versions, but it isn’t as easy.

I like the idea of selecting for good fertility and germination. It seems we sometimes try to push the envelope with plants with small seed sets and poor germination – when we see a really lovely flower it is pretty easy to forget the more practical necessities – for a breeder anyway – of getting healthy offspring! I have been very frustrated of late working with R. palustris. It is a wonderful species, especially for my heavy clay soil that spends a lot of the time verging on waterlogged, but the seeds are tiny – though plentiful – hate germinating, and produce weak seedlings. If they get past the seedling stage, they are fine, but any little trouble shortly after germination (And since I am going to college and working two jobs things don’t always get the TLC they need) and they all keel over and die.

Joseph.

Hi Jim:

Thanks for making my table look so nice. I am going to try to do that if no one minds…



Seedling Seed Parent Pollen Parent Hips Seeds Seeds/Hip

44 E5-1 OP’ 82 627 7.65

4 E5-2 OP’ 12 54 4.50

2 E5-3 OP’ 8 66 8.25

14 E5-4 OP’ 11 62 5.64

11 E5-5 OP’ 10 76 7.60

74 E5-6 OP’ 22 251 11.41

10 E5-7 OP’ 24 169 7.04

142 E5-9 OP’ 13 284 1.85



I think that did it!

Jim

Jim:

That is interesting that ‘SunSprite’ has shown better fertility after a year. I used it in the past but gave up on it for such a poor germination. I wonder how it would do to just plan on planting all of the seeds after a year of cold storage? I tried it with ‘Midas Touch’, but the seeds all rotted!

It seems that yellows definitely have a delay in their germination. That even seems to happen when they are used as pollen parents, but to a lesser degree.

I have another seedling that I am excited about as a seed parent it is a cross of ‘Orangeade’ X ‘Abraham Darby’. It is a clean fragrant smaller plant (as opposed to the usual more giant off-spring coming from ‘Abraham Darby’). It is quite fertile and produces nice old garden type seedlings. I have crossed some other large flowered seedlings with it and back crossed it with ‘Abraham Darby’ to see if the smaller stature of the seedling will be dominant over ‘Abraham Darby’. Also, I have put some of the purple seedlings with it in hopes of something interesting.

Jim

Jim,

Your Orangeade X Abraham Darby seedling sounds exciting - good luck with it!

Sunsprite seeds generally don’t germinate well for me either. I normally throw out my seeds after a year, and I threw out most of my Sunsprite seeds last year too, just keeping a few of the more exotic crosses. I’m beginning to regret that I threw out any Sunsprite seeds. I’ve just had another first germination from a two-year old Sunsprite cross:

Sunsprite x William Allen Richardson

I’ve had more first germinations from this year’s crosses too, including:

American Honor X Serendipity

Arrillaga X Arthur Bell

Ferdinand Pichard X Magenta

Magenta X Ferdinand Pichard

I’m hoping that the latter two crosses will give me lavender stripes.

I’ve been trying to post my sprouts from a copy/paste, and I can’t get it to preview message.

I’m trying this to see if it will somehow take typed text when pasted fails.

Weird, but it seems to work for typed text but not for pasted lists that were copied

Randy

do you have less than() characters

in your list at all? This may confuse it into thinking

you are entering HTML.

Just thought I’d share my excitement.

I’ve only got a few seedlings so far:

– Rosa rugosa alba x Rosa carolina (definitely hybrids) from 2 year old seed that had been neglected badly

– ‘Fragrant Cloud’ x Rosa carolina (looks like it might have finally really worked after many failed attempts) at least two seedlings have leaf characteristics leaning toward the pollen parent…time will tell

The pollen parent of these two crosses is a plant I collected in West Virginina. It hasn’t been the most cooperative breeder. I’m pretty sure it is Rosa carolina, a tetraploid (2n=28) rose native to the U.S. After its main bloom period, it repeats bloom at the tips of current year canes. This scattered blooming has continued until frost. I’m hoping that the seedlings will be repeat blooming also.

Randy,

After you paste in your list and click ‘Preview Message’, what do you see on the Preview page? What browser are you using? What version is it?

Jim

Jim, I am so ignorant of computers and how they work I can’t answer the question. My lovely wife says it must be explorer unless there is one through MSN, our service provider.

When I click on “Preview Message” there is no response. It is as if I never clicked the button. Nothing.

I’ll just have to be content with typing my text messages as I don’t know enough to help you figure out what the problem is.

Randy

Randy,

Could you click on the email link next to my name, paste your text into the email and send it to me?

Thanks,

Jim

I’ve had some more first germinations from this year’s crosses and last year’s crosses.

This year’s crosses:

Armada x Duet

Armada x Europeana

Arthur Bell x Sun Flare

Pink Parfait x Armada

Last year’s crosses:

Duet x Gold Medal

Duet x Maria Callas

Mutabilis x unknown

Jim,

Same as when I tried “preview message” When I tried to send the pasted list to you from the “email” button on the post it was as if I never clicked on the button at all. No error, no nothing. If you could email me maybe I can get it to you through the “reply” button.

Randy

Just lots and lots of OP stuff, I’m especially happy that I have one surviving The Alchymist seedling that has produced its first leaves. Mme. Isaac Pereire is such a good seed parent, it seets OP hips and opens up like an easy flirt. I had sprouts in the bag for atleast a month, many had produced its first leaves in it. Then there’s Basye’s Legacy, some of my own Orange Ruffels hybrids, and etc.,. Hardest to sprout is Fragrant Plum. No luck.

Hello,

I always tell people that there are no ‘dumb’ questions, but I think I have one: What does “OP” mean in hybridizing ease?

Sincerely,

Libby Walton

Libby,

OP means open-pollinated (often self-pollinated on varieties with good pollen).