Morden Blush?

I did a search on this rose but unable to find much regarding fertility. It has interesting flowers, and colorful blue-green foilage. Any comments on its breeding capacity?

I got 30 seeds from using its pollen on 1 rose ( Folksinger X Illusion ) last summer.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pxHhTw7ylg7-IvdLke9veKA

Link: spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pxHhTw7ylg7-IvdLke9veKA

Henry, there’s just one hip reported on your sheet. Does that mean this hip produced 30 seeds?

And how many flowers of Folksinger x Illusion did you pollinate with MB to obtain that ONE hip?

Perhaps it’s too early to be asking this; have any of these seeds germinated as of yet? I see none listed to date.

Last fall, a bunch of MB op seeds were sent to me in trade; none have sprouted.

I have made hundreds of crosses with Morden Blush as a female, but I have never tried it as a male. It is an above-average female parent, although it will fail to set a certain percentage of the hips in a fairly random fashion. Emasculating can be tricky, as there are many petals. I tend to emasculate after the bloom first starts to open. This raises the possibility of accidental self-pollination. I know that the majority, at least, of the seeds are not self-pollinated, but some might be. Germination is at least average. It is capable of producing recurrent offspring, and does so at a higher rate than Morden Centennial. The offspring tend to look a lot like Morden Blush itself, although that may be partly due to accidental selfing.

Continuing with the fertility of Morden roses, Morden centennial has phenomenal female fertility. I have also had good luck with the female fertility of Morden Sunrise (above average), Morden Belle (above average), Morden Fireglow (above average), and Hope for Humanity (above average hip set but low seed number). Cuthbert Grant was hit and miss, very unpredictable, but sometimes good. I have found Morden Snowbeauty to be poor overall, although it will make the occasional decent hip with even difficult pollen. Morden Ruby, Morden Amorette, and Adelaide Hoodless were all very poor female parents.

I tried Morden Ruby as a male parent and it was also poor for that role. Oddly, when I tried Morden Snowbeauty, it was an exceptionally fine pollen parent. Years ago, I had at least some luck using pollen from Cuthbert Grand and Assiniboine.

I would expect that Morden Blush would be a good pollen parent, although I might very well be surprised. You might want to consider also trying Morden Snowbeauty. I feel it is underappreciated due to its simple, semi-double flowers, but it has many of the same lovely leaf and plant traits as Morden Blush.

Roger Mitchell, Ferris State University, Big Rapids, Michigan (USDA zone 4)

Dee, yes, one hip produced 30 seeds.

This year I did not keep track of the failed pollinations. In the past I often did, but found the information confusing as (for example) 2 identical crosses would have 1 that worked and 1 that failed.

What may be interesting is how the Moden Blush pollinated seeds of Folksinger x Illusion compare, germination wise, with the other pollen parents used on Folksinger x Illusion listed in the table

I am trying to keep that link I gave up to date.

Thank you very much.