Are there any reliable means of determining if a rose will be a (this kind of follows Georges’ ‘rant’ but is not about genetic remontancy ) reliable or even fast repeating , or heavy blooming specimen? I have read on this forum that seedlings that produce multiple first blooms are seedlings that will be heavy bloomers. Does this bear out in real life or is this just wishful thinking? Or are there any other signals? And is it just that multiple blooms on a seedling means this is a floribunda or polyantha type seedling?
Jackie, I always say and to my experience so far, if a seedling produces blooms at a very young age (12wks old) and it repeats very quickly, no matter what it is, it going to be a cracker of rebloomer.
Hi Jackie,
a great question!!
I think I have culled some seedlings too soon, guessing that they were unlikely to be everbloomers based on no flowers in the first couple of months of their life… …Of course those that bloom early on are the easy ones to pick and save, the key question here seems to me to be regarding those that do not bloom in the first few months…when is the waiting long enough in those??
Someone wrote on another thread that some breeders have reported seedlings that did not flower in their first year to later on become everblooming (I hope I read that correctly!!!). If that is the case for some seedlings occasionally, then that makes your question even more important to sort through!!!
I am also curious about the policy of the large scale commercial rose hybridizers around the world (USA, Europe) in regards to when they regard “the time has come to cull a seedling for lack of everblooming potential”.
Warren,
I notice you have a number of ‘continuous bloomers’ AKA 'quick repeaters. Many of them have either Wendy, Iceberg, Moulin Rouge or Queen E in their lineage. You do seem to have nailed it with the continuous bloomers. At approximately what age (in weeks or months) do you make that judgement? Obviously you do a lot of culling also, but do you have a rule of thumb for culling the other than obvious losers? Not all your seedlings can be “a cracker of a rebloomer”. I think that I might unceremoniously dump some that might turn out if given a bit more time.
Hi Jackie, Moulin Rouge offspring are good repeaters and for large trusses of blooms, the only thing is , its colour can be a bit dominant, but if you like that fire engine red you should be ok.
Most of my first culling is done between 12 to 15 wks after germination for the repeat blooming. Culling is also done earlier for fungal problems (PM). At around 3mths old what is left goes in the grow out plots (sort like paddock grown) out of town. Here they are continually assessed and culled, it is not unusual for me to cull 200 in an half hour period. What is left shows their faces on here or HMF as possible keepers and registered.
Those with special breeding which may not flower the first year are kept, but once they do and are assessed for the traites I want, they are put in a breeding cycle for 2yrs and then shovelled.
Quick repeat was a trait that the Dutch cut flower research team looked into in the 1970’s/80’s. There was the possibility to select roses with faster repeat flowering, but they found that as they did that there was the price of shorter stems. We can look to their literature. Additionally, there has been discussions in the past and observations that there are roses that have more synchronous repeat bloom in larger flushes with less inbetween (e.g. ‘Marie Pavie’) and other roses with a more continuous display as they display “everblooming” habits. With limited plant resources, I think we probably need to make a choice for what kind of display we would prefer. With the move today to more acceptance of landscape or bedding roses that are less double, we have greater opportunity for cultivars providing a lot of color in the garden with less resources devoted to a lot of petals and we can achieve greater surface area of color for less resources with single and semi double roses and having a market for them. If I remember right, ‘Zee’ was one of the key breeders many of the rose breeders looked to a couple / few decades ago for more prolific repeat bloom.
With very floriferous roses, we can get into a propagation challenge. ‘Champlain’ for instance is great at flower production, but branches so much to bloom, it is difficult to get very many cuttings from it. Not that this should keep us from trying to find/breed highly floriferous roses!!