I was impressed with the petal substance and rich color of Midas Touch and bought one this spring. It would be great to learn other’s experience with it. I’m trying to use it as a parent and hips seem so be starting from crosses onto it so far and the anthers seem to shed pollen. It looks like there are some offspring from it on Helpmefind. It would be great to learn if the seeds are generally easy to germinate and if it tends to transmit strong warm colors. I suspect it probably will be pretty tender in zone 4 as one of its parents, Brandy, is pretty tender if I remember right from growing it years ago.
I tried it around 2003-2005 time frame. I wouldn’t recommend it. It sets very easily, and makes among the largest hips I have ever seen. The seeds are quite healthy, as well. However, they are so large and thick that germination is not that good.
Midas Touch has some serious faults for breeding, in my opinion.
- Disproportionate gigantism in bloom and foliage, which can be seen here: 'Midas Touch ' Rose Photo
- Internode spacing is really wonky.
- Like you mentioned, its health/hardiness relationship to ‘Brandy’
- Petal count.
It has some virtues: Color and the fact that it isn’t UV specific (will only grow and bloom when UV and/or temperature hits a certain level, like Brandy and many ‘Golden Wav’ descendents are). It is generally healthy for its class (HT).
It would either take 2 generations or some serious luck with the complimentary breeding method to resolve those issues. I think its better to use some more recent commercial hybrids of the same color type if its the rich color one is after.
Agree with pacificjade’s observations.
In my dabbles in spite of the huge hips I saw very low germination rates, but I was using diploid pollen if that mattered.
I did manage to raise a few using Saffrano pollen, but gave the final keeper away due to not unexpected complete lack of fertility, but in your hands Dr. Z., who knows? Give it a shot.
Wish I knew how to generate a fertile triploid.
RBx
What kind of triploid? I can perhaps help you. Although Safrano is a possible source of some bs race resistances (unconfirmed, but it a common ancestor for several bs race resistant lines), tea roses have many deficits that make them a pain to use, sometimes including compatibility.