Here’s something I have been wanting to ask all of you…
I always seem to be running out of the allotted time my wife gives me to “play with my roses” (a.k.a. pollinate). And am wondering if anyone has some suggestions or tricks that I can employ so that I can cut down the amount of time it takes me to put the pollen where it belongs. I recognize that part of my issue is that I am doing a lot of testing this year which gives me crosses that would result in only a few (less than 10) hips (would this be considered artisian?). Still,I have to wonder if there is a faster way of doing this. I am looking for suggestions regarding prep work (things like what to put the pollen in or prepare the flower) and the actual pollinization (do you focus on a single seed parent or do you focus on one pollen at a time?).
I often use the blooms I’ve emasculated for pollen as the seed producers. That cuts half the time right there. Figure out how many blooms you’re going to pollinate of each and write your tags in the evening. Make a list of how many of each name you’ll need, write out the tags prior to applying pollen; put the tags in the appropriate baby food jar (or whatever else you’re keeping it in to take out to apply). Once outside, you remove the tags, begin slipping them around the peduncles and start slapping that stuff on! The more prep work you can do before actually pollinating, the more pollinating you can do in shorter time.
I often collect pollen I wish to use without using the variety as seed parent, a day or two before emasculating the flowers. I waited for Pretty Lady to open today (made a difference! There actually was pollen falling off the anthers!), emasculated them while collecting their pollen, then hit them with pollen I’d collected day before yesterday. Tags were already written so all I had to do was stick them and smear the pollen. Took just a few minutes and that one was done.
When I was doing several hundred in a day, in the old garden, I would emasculate and collect pollen today, keeping track of how many of each were to be pollinated. That night, I wrote out the tags and spread pollen to dry. The next day, the dried pollen was dumped back in the jars along with the appropriate quantity of written tags (pollen parent name only), and everything taken out to the garden. Using the potting bench as the base camp, I followed the list, taking the specific jars of pollen and tags to the particular seed parent where I would accomplish all of them on that seed parent, then, back to the bench to pick up the next ones. I’m not doing nearly as many, nor with nearly as many roses (300 v. over 1200 plants) as I used to.
I also often use flowers emasculated for pollen as the seed producers except in cases were I do not wish to for some reason or it will not produce seeds.
If you can instead of marking every hip use a bush for only one single pollen or say a branch then you only need one tag.
Doing test crosses and then only repeating ones that show promise in bulk.
In most cases when using something new allow it to set open pollinated hips to find out what it will produce or if it will even set seed. A few cases you may give it a shot but pick your battles.
Have a plan and direction. If you now what you want in the end you will save time by going down less wrong paths.
Listen to others more experienced. I have tried things in the past that if I would of listened to so and so I would know it would only produced mildew proned seedlings. I do think you have to take chances some times but pick the battles that are most worth fighting.
keep track of parents that produce the most seedlings that you select to go on. If using a ton of parents most of your keepers are only coming from a few of them you will save time by focusing on these few.
Make a plain at the begining of the year. Decide what you want to cross. Then decide what crosses are most important and which add the most to your goals. Do those crosses first and then if you have time later at the end of your sequeduled time do some of the others.
Take a small vacation at peak bloom time. Leave a few days just for pollination and makes sure others know that it is for that ahead of time. Also make sure you have a day or two during that time were you are not pollinating but a spending the time with the person who puts up with this stuff. They need to know that they are special too. If you give a little usually you can take a little too.
Good luck Andre. If you ever find out how to do all the crosses you want let me know. I still can’t manage it. The best I can do is the ones most important to me and a few more either test crosses or just curiosity born.
I also collect pollen 2 days or more ahead of needing it. And if the pollen parent is a good seed parent, it gets used if it is possible. I track what needs to be pollinated when emasculating, and have a list of available viable pollen. Then after dinner, (could be while watching TV, don’t watch tv myself) I sit down and make all the tags for the pollinating to be done the next AM, sort them with the pollen cups so that I can grab the next AM. Several yrs ago, I had one HS kid (on a sports team) and one kid in college (on the graduation with honors track) and what with being their wheels, I had only about 25-30 minutes in early AM to do all my crosses. I would take 2-3 (plastic 2oz cups with lids) out the door, pollinate, come back, exchange for 2-3 more cups of pollen, etc. I don’t think I ever took more than 30 minutes in the AM (and not every day) or 30-45 min in the PM (and not every day) and on the week end I had a bit more time to look at what I missed, or what new I could try. It took about 3 yrs for me to try every combination I had along with using pollens that were donated-and it took that long for me to “see, and understand” what some of these combos were doing, and helped to project a little into what other combinations could do. Pollen goes a long way, it helps to have a good little short bladed cuticle scissors to emasculate, and if it isn’t going to rain, forego any of the protective kitschy devices that only take time. If you run out of time, pollinate the next day. The window of pollination opportunity is open at least 24 hrs, and a bit more.
You don’t have to pollinate 5-10 hips on every variety. If you don’t have the time, try 2-3 hips on the more important varieties, and go back and do more if you have time. I have found that my crosses are getting healthier every yr, I have dropped the non-productive or unhealthy varieties, (again, to find out if a plant produces healthy seedlings, you only need 10-20 seedlings, not one hundred.) And I find that each hip produces on average approx 20 seeds, with approx 10-12 seedlings. They averaged less when I started. But if you think you are busy now, wait until you have sproutlings coming out of your ears. That is when I am the busiest, but I do (and have) always pot up all seedlings when first sprouted in the baggies coming out of stratification. Don’t burn yourself out-there is always next yr., and the next yr. When you cease to get satisfaction out of what you are doing, it is no longer fun. And name your first and best roses after those who allow you space to have fun.
Andre, one thing I found to save a lot of time is using taggng tape to indicate the pollen parent… I invested in 20 different colors (combinations) in the 1980s. So each pollinator is represented by a bunch of 4-5 inch pieces in a pint plastic freezer bag (not ziploc, but the old fashioned kind. I can stuff several in each of several pockets and carry the pollen in plastic petri dishes. Or if you’re really serious, get a carpenter’s apron for the tapes. I carry a color key with me if I have several things going on one day.
I pollinate by 5s when a shrub plant has lots of open flowers. I can’t remember more than that many locations at once. Remove petals and stamens on 5 flowers, go back and pollinate, then tag them. Move on to the next group of 5 on that plant until you’re done with it. If you need the pollen for tomorrow, collect it as you tear off the stamens with you thumb and forefinger. For 10 flowers it certainly takes less than 5 min. And Adam is right that you can save more time if you do only one pollen on one mother plant. Only one tag.
I recycle my tapping tapes multiple years. Some colors/brands hold up for 3-5 years if grasshoppers don’t chew on them, or prickles don’t tear them up when removing (like on moss roses). If I should have more than 20 parents going at once, as this year, I just create new combinations by double-tagging (twist two colors together before tying.)
Of course preplanning helps too, if you can sneak the time at other times of day.
I am doing a lot of testing this year which gives me crosses that would result in only a few (less than 10) hips.
Andre, by this do you mean that you consider a yield of ten hips of a given cross as being relatively few? If so, then I am curious how many blooms you pollinate for a given cross.
These days I limit one pollen parent for every mother plant and to make things even easier, I also remove all the sepals off the pollinated flower just after I pollinate it, to mark it has been done. That avoids skipping pollination of occasional flowers (by losing track of pollination numbers just done) esp. when the pollen is hard to see with my eyes. It also means I can quickly identify any flowers that later open up and have not been pollinated by me, and remove them if I don’t care for getting any OP hips.
Using these tricks, I have also totally eliminated the need for tagging any of the pollinated flowers to ID the pollen parent. All this has helped me a lot to regain more time for myself which is great.
I prepare the pollen a day or two before I use it. I keep them in folded 8 1/2" x 11" papers (1/2 x 1/2 - 4 1/4" x 5 1/2") that I used to dry the pollen in. I put the folded papers in envelopes (A-6 size - for invitations), but do not seal the envelopes.
I prepare the mothers the night before. I used to save all of the pollen on every bloom I emasculated. I don’t do that any more. I only save pollen from the mothers if I am running low on it, or I plan to use it on other roses. When you are emasculating roses, but not worrying about saving the pollen, it saves a lot of time.
I also mark my crosses with small wires used for telephones. There are four colors, and I cut them into lengths about 2" - 2 1/2" long. They twist around the stem of roses rather easily. I use different color combinations to indicate different pollen donors. I write the color code on the envelope. Once fall arrives, the wires stand out quite well.
The wires serve many purposes for me. First they indicate the pollen donor on the plant. Second the “tags” don’t become eyesores in the garden all summer long. Third, my wife doesn’t object to them being on the roses. Fourth, they can be kept with the hips while I am picking them. And, lastly, many times I wrap them in the paper towels with the seeds while stratifying. All along the way, I can look up the cross that was made. Slugs don’t touch them. Ink doesn’t fade. Handwriting doesn’t have to be deciphered months later (especially when you receive exotic pollen from other members from their “specially coded” roses). The key is to pick color combinations that are different each time.
Also remember, hybridize only as many roses as you are able to take care of. In my case, I aim for about 50-100 new roses per year. Any more than that is just too much for me to handle. My wife easily recognizes that I am unable to take care of too many roses, and family life (and work commitments) get(s) very strained. This hobby is supposed to be fun and relaxing, and not a chore that needs to be “dealt with” year in and year out.
Thank you everyone for the great suggestions. I see a lot of similarities as well as a few innovative ideas I think I might try.
I started the season pollinating by seed parent - I would take my tray of pollen to the mother plant and do one pollen at a time. The past week I started doing all of one pollen before moving on to the next. I also did about 10-15 pollens a day and now limit myself to just 5 maybe 6 a day. By limiting myself to just a few pollens I am able to do more than just one of the same cross.
I am doing mostly testing this year (checking both seed and pollen capability) so my goal is to get somwhere between 5 to 10 hips of various crosses so I can make sure I get an accurate idea of the parent’s capabilities. I figure once I can determine fertilitiy I can narrow down which parents I use and instead of doing 500 different crosses I would only do about 100-200. To answer Don’s question, I would like to do up to 20 of the same cross to make up for hip drop, rodents’ lunches, faded tags, etc. so that I can see what the potential for the combo would be. Maybe it is a bit ambitious but I have the room for now so I might as well do it. Plus it might be easier for me to cull if I have more seedlings from the same cross. For me, it is more difficult to cull seedlings from a lot of 10 than a lot of 25. And even easier if I have 100 of the same cross. I am still new to the hobby so I still have not worked out a few kinks yet (stratification and germination being the big ones).
You might want to try planting open-pollenated seeds of a potential seed parent as well. This will give you a range of what a seed parent passes on to their offspring, without muddying up the results with the pollen parent’s good/bad genetics. I have done this many times, and I have found quite a few mothers this way.
That was how I started. I watched to see what grew well, with few to no problems. Out of those, I watched to see what would set self hips easily, then raised many of the self seeds to see what they were like before selecting those which I first used for seed and pollen parents. Researching what created what I admired on HMF helped select the roses I collected and assisted in avoiding a few which created results I really didn’t care for. While Ralph frequently fell back on the “because I had it” pragmatism, I sought to stock the harem with those I wished to use instead of selecting from what was there. I made some poor judgements, of course, but it helped prevent me from using Angel Farts! LOL!
I love growing out OP hips. You never know what you are going to get out of them. It was how I got started - if I recall it was Kim that started me down this path using my OP hips (I’ll just remind my wife to blame you if she ever starts to miss her lawn). My two year old daughter loves looking at all the baby roses coming up - even the kenurpled ones.
Observing the hip set and seed germination of OP hips from Senior Prom, Rhode Island Red, Fourth of July, Compassion, Morden Blush, Pink Pillar, Golden Arctic, Night Owl and even (please don’t hate me) Blueberry Hill, is why they are being used a lot this year to test some pollens and make some crosses I had listed to make. They generally grow well and offer something I want to carry forward. I also have a few that have set OP hips with good number of healthy looking seeds which I never grew out - Viking Queen, Adelaide Hoodless, Lasting Love and Bingo Queen. Additionally, there were some that I don’t recall collecting OP hips from (I’m sure they were there) but have a lot of descendants listed on hmf or from forum posts that are being used as seed parents.
But I also have many that I am using because they don’t have any descendants listed at all and were either new to me last year or I am just curious if maybe they do not self pollinate and therefore do not set OP hips. Honeysweet is one that was new last year and has no descendants, of the 7 crosses I made with it as seed parent, 4 are still hanging on the bush and looking good. White Cap, Brownell’s Climbing Floribunda Pillar, fits in the other category. I have had it for about 8 years and it does nothing but bloom for me with no OP hips. It is a very healthy plant and I wanted to see if I can get something out of it either as seed or pollen. It has so many petals that when I was dissecting the blooms to look for pollen, about 75% don’t even have the anthers to give pollen (no surprise). So I decided to pollinate it with something that is pollen fertile (and with fewer petals) to see if this might be the issue why it hasn’t been used in further breeding. The few anthers I did find released a respectable amount of pollen and that was also put on my seed fertile varieties (I think one fat hip I am watching is a Blueberry Hill X White Cap). Hopefully something could come out these two varieties as they are both really healthy here - the whole reason I am even bothering with these two and a few other varieties that don’t set OP hips.
Next year I will not be testing as much. Then again, I did pick up only about 35 more Buck varieties this year that I am thinking about incorporating into my breeding (at least the ones that end up growing well). Many of these appear to have been largely ignored in breeding as well and need to be tested.
When emasculating blossoms to pollinate, it is not always necessary to peel off individual petals from the bud to get to the fun parts. If you grasp the whole flower bud firmly near the base of the petals while holding what will be the hip with the other hand and wiggle it back and forth, often the petals will snap off cleanly en masse, leaving the reproductive parts intact and exposed. It doesn’t work every time or with every rose, and you’ll probably end up ruining a few blossoms, but it definitely a time saver when it works.
Great ideas and points!! One thing I do too is grow my fingernails longer,especially thumb and forefinger. I dig into the petals and rip and pull them off. In addition, I can grab and pinch groups of anthers pulling them easily away letting them fall or collect them in containers. I hate tweezers and drop and bend and lose them.
Andre, switching to tweezer action scissors like these dramatically saved me time. Light weight, easily manuevered, sharp with small points for digging into over lapped petals and peeling them off cleanly or digging out buried anthers from around the inside of an ovary receptical, and very easy to use to cut anthers off cleanly without damaging the remaining parts. They hook over one of my other fingers when not in use while I pollinate, too.
I don’t like numbering my crosses and having to refer back to a list to figure out what something is, so I set upon a short hand method, writing it down in case I forget and refering back to it to make sure it’s consistent. Gardens of the World became GOTW; 1-72-1Hugonis = 17H; Little Butterfly = LB, Eyes for You = E4Y, Blue for You = B4Y,etc. Saves a great deal of time when writing a number of tags. I only write the pollen parent on the tag. When I collect them, I’ll take out baggies with a label inside with the seed parent’s name, and cut enough stem from each to make the tag strings remain on until they are cleaned. Or, a tray or box of small jars or other containers with a tag with the seed parent’s name in each one so they’re sorted by seed parent. If I’m harvesting off only one plant, then they all are the same seed parent and are kept sorted by pollen parent.
I’m headed out now to pollinate a bunch of Cal Poly. The pollen is prepared in their baby food jars and the tags with the pollen parent names are written and placed in the appropriate jars. I have my list of how many of each I expect to create so when I hit the area, I just grab tags, the correct jar and begin attaching tags and slapping on the pollen.