Hello
This past season, I was so busy with work that I decided not to do pollinations, and left it up to the insects. Now I have a lot of open pollinated hips and am wondering, in general, what percentage I might expect to be crosses vs selfies? Is there any rule of thumb? I suppose it depends on the availability of other pollen, how close it is, how the insect population is, etc. For what it’s worth I have a very healthy native bee population here, and a big diversity of roses in a fairly small area.
Should I germinate as many seeds as possible in hopes of getting a few crosses?
Alternately, what are the chances that self-pollinated offspring of my own crosses will be appreciably different from their mommy?
Thanks for any guidance, I’m new to the OP game.
don
I have been wondering the same. I didn’t cross with my Carefree Beauty this year after several disappointing seedlings last year, and now I have well over 100 hips from the stupid thing. (Bees make me feel like a total failure, thank you.) Honestly, the odds of something decent coming of their work seem higher than the odds from the few take I got. It’s a matter of statistics, really…
I suppose though that yours is a bit of an open questions as so many variables are involved: How many other roses were blooming simultaneously? Proximity? Relative fertility? Self-incompatibility?
For my part, I assume that the vast majority will be selfs. If as many as 10% aren’t, I would be pleasantly surprised, but barring some odd deviation from Momma, I’m not sure how I might know. For that matter, I really have no idea just how much genotype (as opposed to phenotype) is hidden within the entire genome that could account for lots of variation in an average tetraploid seedling.
I do a fair bit of this, I collect and sow every seed regardless of intentional cross or not. Knowing that a lot of seedlings will die for one reason or another (often lack of care in the extreme heat and drought conditions…sometimes I just don’t water often enough), it’s currently worth my time to see the results of the insects, just to see if they survive my neglect (probably a worthy trait, neglect survivors). From the OP seeds of modern tetraploids, selfing seems the norm, often the variation is fairly minor, differences in colour (ie near whites, producing near whites or pale pinks. yellow/red mixes typically producing yellow/red mixes or rarely yellow/pink mixes, lavenders pretty much always producing lavenders just differing in intensity) or petal count (this can vary a lot), always still easily placed as a child of X rose. Anything significantly different is uncommon, likely falls into that 1 in 36 territory for 4 copies of recessive genes.
It’s often more dramatic with diploids, out crosses seem a lot more obvious and common (ie a bunch of Baby Faurax seedlings this season are deep red with a yellow base), results are often more varied even when selfing is most likely (there’s a bunch that seem straight up multiflora and haven’t bloomed yet…Baby Faurax was the only poly and no multiflora last season. while others are juvenile blooming poly types in various white/pink/purple shades and varying petal counts).
It seems the most major factor, obviously, would be self-incompatibility. Also, from my own seed parents (not a lot of experience with them) some seem to be far more variable in seedlings than others, whether I crossed them or not. Therese Bugnet comes to mind, my seedlings from her (as seed parent) look a lot alike, some taller than others, but growth similar and foliage almost identical. Flowers varied mostly from single to semi double but same color and fragrance although strength varied. This was true for O.P. and crosses.
One of my seed parents is throwing seedlings all across the board.
All were intentional crosses, but there was far more variety than with other seed parent crosses. So maybe it depends a lot on seed parent?
I would be interested to hear from those with more experience. Thanks Plazbo!
There’d definitely be a significant factor in seed parent determining variability. I mean if the seed parent is from a wide cross you’d expect variability in offspring. I mean look at something like Calocarpa, a fertile result of a cross that typically results in sterile plants, while there may not be much variability in the flower colour (pink) from selfing, the plant characteristics from it’s seed should vary quite a bit, anything from the delayed bloom from rugosa to juvenile bloom from the china, very different foliage (and autumn foliage colour), thorns, etc given how very different it’s parents are.
You could look at seed strains like Angel Wings if available where you are, they’d be OP (and likely OP going back generations) and would vary from supplier to supplier due to different parent/harvest stock but possibly an adequate demonstration on variability that can be seen within a few weeks of sowing. I have around 200 seedling plants, the majority are single pale pinks but there are definite outliers appearing, 1 is a near red double, others are deeper pinks, a few have bluer foliage, etc. They are all fairly similar so when there’s a difference (even slight) it stands out straight away. In a lot of ways it makes selection far easier.