I suspect it could be done far easier than that. Many of us have or at least have access to a smartphone or ipod touch, which can do MPEG video. We could each do a 3-5 minute clip and then share it online (DropBox or similar) and then one of us could edit the clips into a single movie file for sharing. That does sound interesting and I suspect it would be of immense value.
Are you volunteering to edit it? hehehe
I am breeding, but on a very, very, very small scale. I mainly work with ops, though I made a deliberate cross to see the results and have collected those hips (quite happy with that actually) this year.
I do not have the money or space (well technically space but specific space allotted) to do large scale seedling work like I’d want to.
Thank you for the encouragement to start breeding, but I really don’t know how to make that happen in this climate.
However, if any of you want to truly test your roses for heat tolerance, I’d be happy to give that a go.
Smiles,
Lyn
This is a great thread! I love to hear of everyone’s interest and participation in the most wonderful hobby in the whole world. I guess that I relate most to Pierre’s comment, “highly rose breeding intoxicated…”. Almost every year I do more crosses and a greater variety of crosses than I intend to. Last year was no exception. Right now we are with family in Spokane, enjoying the break, but there are lots of seeds in the fridge and I can’t wait to get them planted! Though I have grown many thousands of seedlings, the thrill of seeing new seedlings blooming for the first time remains. I love seeing things grow, especially rose seedlings where purposeful crosses were made. It is so fun to see traits carried forward from one generation to the next. Love it!
The idea of sharing experiences via iPhone movies sounds great. I suspect that we could all learn quite a lot from each other in a more visual format. Let’s do it!
Well, I’m still very much in the “early amateur” stage but I’m definitely making crosses and starting to see results. My best seedling from last year, White Wings X M37-1 (a Jim Sproul Hulthemia hybrid), is still in flower and hasn’t shown a bit of any disease. Bonus, this seedling has already produced quite a few hips with a high seed-to-hip ratio and it seems to be working well as a pollinator.
I’ve begun opening hips and will start planting seeds next week. (Seems I’m a bit behind many of you here in Southern California though already!) I’m sure this second photo is a familiar site to many out here right about now.
To reiterate what Joan said earlier, thank you to those “giants” out here whose shoulders we can even dream about climbing up on!
Happy New Year everyone!
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I’m glad you used White Wings, Joseph. It’s a wonderful single HT. I really enjoyed it in the old garden.
WW is one of my favorites too. Glad I got some genes to pass along from it.
(Correction though, my seedling was from M37-1 x White Wings. Not the other way around.)
hi all, this will be my seventh year of hybridizing thanks to frank benardella telling me try it!. i miss him. to see him in his green house was very special . i only grow 100 or so seeds every year in my dining room in front of a window on a light table setup with 2 shelfs that my wife got me 6 years ago for my birthday. i also have 8 mini roses growing and blooming under the lights. i need my roses!. one plant is a seedling that was growing up against another seedling that i did not see till october and so i took it in for the winter. it
has a beautiful red rose on it now with some orange and yellow at the base of the petals. its crossed with black cherry and marina. i hope everyone gets that rose they are working
on this year!. HAPPY NEW YEAR patrick
I spent 300$ on electricity last month and horticulture is my main work -I also fill time for a soil scientist. If I am not devoted I don’t know what is -I think that it is an obsession. Do any of you guys sleep dream of doing crosses deep in January? I think we all do.
Oh, Marjit, I will be leaving in a couple of years for Sask for the summers at least. I started to move my germplasm this year and hope to finish the move this summer. I have 640 acres with black, grey, and sandy soil all that I need for my trials. This move brings great hope for the quantity of Siberian Iris, grapes, plums and that which pays ROSES!
Johannes P
Wow, Johannes. Where do you live now? In a cold part of Canada? Breeding grapes, too? Don’t tell me your address, or you might get a visitor.
Hi bergerson
Thanks for the interest. Most of the work is done in zone2 at the farm 100 miles northeast of Edmonton AB but the less hardy are grown in the heat island of the city (Edmonton AB). The vinifera (true wine grape) are kept in the basement.
The plums, apricot, and hybrids of the two and also lovely cherryplums. I also have four Nanking cherry X black plum crosses. But I like everything but the real love will always be grape then wine.
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Johannes
I see that you are from N. Minn. If you are in Canada I love the idea of communication. Come see what I am doing in Zone 1b/2a.
Wow, that would be great! I dont know when I’ll be able to swing it–maybe next summer, but a plant breeding trip to Canada is at the top of my list. I’d like to visit USASK as well and isn’t Paul Geurts up there somewhere, too?
Those Nanking crosses sound fun. I haven’t ever crossed any Prunus…they bloom right when I am the busiest. I drove up to Manitoba this summer and came home with four ice cream pails full of Romance series cherries “for juice.” I did make some really tasty juice, but my real target was the pits, which are now all in the ground. I am interested in breeding a Red Leafed Chokecherry that is resistant to black knot, but my first attempt literally went to the birds.
We have exactly three hardy grape varieties here: Beta, Valiant, and King of the North. What a pity.
Thanks for your interest. I hope we can get together!
Whoops, sorry, Paul G., I see you’re from Minnesota!
Sorry Joe I’m in the other direction. If you’re ever down towards the Cities stop on by.
Thirty years ago, long before I got into rose breading, I grew some grapes with the intent of doing some hybridizing with them. I had Edelweiss and Swenson Red along with some French Hybrids like Marechal Foch and Seyval Blank. But life got in the way and nothing became of it. And as a kid we had Beta and Concord. Concord rarely produced a crop, the winters were too cold and the growing season too short. But Beta just plugged along every year producing those sour grapes. Beta was discovered growing wild not far from where I grew up.
I was wondering has either of you guys tried the new varieties released by the U of M? There are number new vineyards and wineries spring up around here and I suspect they are growing these new grapes, but I haven’t checked them out yet.
I cannot say I am very actively hybridizing. (…Nor spending as much time on this forum as I would like, as evidenced by my late post.) We’ve purchased and are renovating a house (with 1/2 acre yard! Yay!) but my wife is PG, so that could put a serious damper on my rose activities in the new year! (Different kind of baby in 2013, I reckon.)
I would have to say, that since hurricane Katrina I have been more of an “armchair breeder” than an “active” breeder due to other priorities — from renovating and selling a New Orleans home, caring for my long-term terminally ill father, and after his passing, marrying and moving to TX. My “keepers” from pre-K are all lost, and last year’s small batch of hips had zero germinations, which might actually be a good thing given the stock I’m already having to move.
So call me a passive breeder at the moment. I love to suggest crosses for other folks to attempt while I’m still trying to get it all together. But I’m hoping to jump back into it with both feet with, hopefully, the enthusiastic help of our child.
This forum was therapy for me in the years immediately following Katrina. Dreaming of long term plans working with something so wonderful and abstract as rose geneology helped me to escape the immediacy of a daunting and horrific situation.
I have always liked growing plants of all kinds. But I did not find what I really wanted to grow till I started breeding roses ~5 years ago. I have aprox 300 seedlings a year.
One of favorites rose so far is this one. It is Knockout X Gina’s Rose.
Daniel
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That’s lovely Daniel. It’s going to be fun seeing how prickle free and black spot resistant it is.
Nice one, Daniel.
I’m wondering how does it work to get a double rose from two singles if singleness is a recessive trait? I’m guessing the answer is “it’s not that simple.”