The harvest has started, how close is everyone else to their harvest, is it going well?. Once again it looks like I am having an unbelievably good year. I guess we shall have to wait for germinations. But my indigo is on a mission this year. Way over 100 seeds so far, with about 7 hips to go! If I get one germination from my own plant " Goliath" which I have quite a few hips to go and over 30 seeds then I will spend next season throwing the kitchen sink at it. Very excited for the next seasons germinations to start and to hopefully have the winners of this season flowering to show me itās all worth it!
7 Likes
Indeed, @James_D !
Congratulations on your successful year!
Here too, the season is finally here. I harvested the last hips from my crosses yesterday. Still have some OP hips remaining, Iāll get them this weekend.
Itās been a small harvest this year, I had to spend a lot of time away from home and didnāt get as much done as I would have liked, but itās better than nothing!
6 Likes
The last 2 seasons I have gone as hard as my roses would allow really. Not sure I will be able to keep up that level of crossing in the future. But saying that I have got a lot of pollen frozen for next year!
3 Likes
Uh oh!
I..umā¦I actuallyā¦just started hand-pollinating 2 weeks ago.
I know most of you start hybridizing right away, but for me, the blooms from the main flush in June are cut off so that I can use the stems for propagation, since my goal is to hybridize AND to propagate the rose varieties that I already love.
My genius idea this year was to plant all of my parent roses in pots so that I could bring them indoors in an unheated space under growlights to finish ripening the rose hips, so the hips that are forming will hopefully be kept frost-free while the rose slows down and eventually enters dormancy.
Iāll probably fail again like I did last year, but so far, having roses in pots has been very convenient. I move them around the yard regularly so that they can get the most sun, since the sun has already shifted so much since the summer solstice and their previous locations are somewhat shaded now during the day.
I donāt mind. I only have 1 cross that Iām very interested in, and even if I fail, my priority for this year is to keep the roses alive and to successfully get my rooted cuttings through the winter, since many of my roses had extensive dieback last year due to our stupid Midwest winters.
I wish you all luck with your efforts!
5 Likes
I got tons of OP seeds off Roi des Pourpres and Capitaine Basroger. The latter grows in close proximity to a bunch of other mosses so Iām excited to see if Iāll get some good mossy seedlings from it.
5 Likes
Interesting, I only have one bush even close to ripe so far and itās an early blooming species rose. Iām in New York z7a. @James_D what zone are you in out of curiosity?
2 Likes
My use of nutkana-pollen onto Rosa glauca has made a nice red hip, but nothing else is colouring up yet. Iāll be watching and collecting hips til December, I think. The deer and elk (Both! Not even kidding.) did a number on my breeding plants OVER AND OVER this season, so the number of crosses made is substantially reduced. Many fits were thrown, curses cursed, and depressive episodes survived.
Iāll be sowing more OPs than crosses next year.
4 Likes
This summer weāve had 29 days of 100+ degree temps, and six days over 105, peaking at 109. So Iāve had a lot of early harvests around the 90 day mark or just when the hips have showed any color. There is only so much watering I am willing to keep up with.
Despite this, itās been a banner year. Lots of successful crosses on roses that Iāve been waiting for a year or two to finally bloom. Iāve got hundreds of seeds from my white prairie rose crosses, which is my main focus as a breeder. And I discovered this year that it actually makes for a very receptive seed parent.
I have no idea where Iām going to find the space, but thatās a problem for future me. Right now my main focus is on chromosome doubling and deciding which potted roses to use as parents in the winter grow tent.
3 Likes
This year we had six weeks of very hot and dry weather in Minneapolis, and I ended up losing a lot of hips. It looks like I will be supplementing with OP hips again this year to reach my goal of 2,000 seeds on the bench. I believe I will be taking cuttings of a few plants and moving them to shadier areas next year, to see if that eventually improves my success rate. I established a new bed in an area that gets only afternoon sun, and the plants seem to be happier than the established roses that get baked all day long.
With that said, I was forced to harvest a few hips early. I grabbed āPolstjarnanā x āAbove and Beyondā, because although it had been probably only 80 days since pollination the hip was ripe and red, and it is the only ripe hip I have managed to get in about three years of pollinating it. Same for āMarianneā x āAbove and Beyondā, because the cross was so tempting.
Yesterday I grabbed my hips of āGallicandyā x āCherry Frostā, because the stems had begun to blacken and the hips were red. Those got about 90 days. The seeds look good though.
Most of my modern seed parents are not ready to be harvested yet. One of my major pollination efforts this year was (Austins) x āIsabella Skinnerā and, although I have lost many of those hips, plenty of plants are still hanging onto two or three. My other possible success is āIsabella Skinnerā x āAbove and Beyondā. I have two huge specimens of each plant, and repeated this pollination on at least fifty roses. This year I was working on a theory that repeated pollination of the same cross might cause it to be more receptive and I believe this may be the case. It appears I am going to bring quite a few of them to term, and we will see how the germinations go. Other hips I have in small quantity but are of interest to me are āAllegraā x (Austins), āRose de Reschtā x (Austins), āBotzarisā x āAbraham Darbyā, āDuchesse du Montebelloā x āWollerton Old Hallā, and āCharles de Millsā x āCherry Frostā.
I am happy to hear that Indigo is a good seed parent. I am most interested in working with OGRs, and have planted one this year that is establishing itself well.
4 Likes
I look forward to hearing about your potential results next year because the majority of your crosses are winter-hardy roses, (Iām assuming the focus on those is because youāre in Minneapolis).
This year I was working on a theory that repeated pollination of the same cross might cause it to be more receptive and I believe this may be the case
What does ārepeated pollinationā mean? Hand-pollinating the same stigma on the same bloom several times a day, or hand-pollinating multiple blooms of the seed parent by pollen of the same pollen parent?
Because the former is proven, right? I pollinate several times a day and havenāt had any failures in hip formation, since receptivity seems to be affected by time of day, temperature, and humidity.
For the later, it would be an interesting concept if a rose somehow becomes more receptive to being pollinated if it keeps getting only one source of pollen. Like if pollen preference goes down if pollen sources/supply also go down.
3 Likes
Years ago, Ralph Moore felt his failures with Bracteata and Rugosa may have been due to not sufficiently pollinating the seed parents with the species pollens. He proclaimed the crosses would therefore be re pollinated several more times after the initial time and his efforts speak for themselves.
2 Likes
I am in the central South of the UK. We had either 5-6 heat waves back to back with no rain for months. Earliest flowering ever for roses mixed with no rain meant mass early pollinations. This then mixed with full sun conditions with no cloud cover due to lack of rain has obviously sped up the season no end. Itās wild, I might have plants germinating before Christmas.
3 Likes
Our Baltic region experienced an exceptionally rainy and cool summer, with only a few brief spells of warmth and a severe lack of sunshine. Seed collection will have to continue into November or even longer, and it is uncertain whether they will manage to ripen properly; many have already rotted. I feel a touch of envy toward those who enjoyed a warm summer. Still, there will be enough seedlingsāand the most important thing is having at least one good one.
5 Likes
Nineteen surviving hips made by me this year. Sigh.
(At least thereās finally ONE on my own repeating-OPseedling of āFranƧois Juranvilleā, which has yet to form a hip on its own. I threw āMutabilisā pollen on it, thinking it might increase the chances of it taking, as I suspect āMutabilisā is itās pollen parent.)
4 Likes
I mean using the same pollen parent repeatedly on the same seed parent, but while I am doing that, I also go back and repeat-pollinate the flowers.
2 Likes
Sorry to hear that. If it makes you feel better itās been quite unpleasant. Endless watering hose pipe bans. Mildew apocalypse. Limited black spot though.
2 Likes
Of 257 pollinations, 149 have developed at all, although they still need some time to mature. Since we are currently experiencing another period of intense heat, a few younger hips will not continue to develop and will fall off. A few isolated hips, including some R. glauca seeds, were already finished for harvest. The relatively high failure rate is likely due primarily to heat stress in the parent roses. Some of these crosses have performed well in recent years. Last year, the intensity of the heat waves was already significantly higher than in previous years, which also led to a massive increase in the failure rate compared to the normal level.
2 Likes
Yeah I think some might be slightly premature for me but they were close. So hopeful. A lot of others still to come