I believe Kordes is not relying only on the survival-of-the-fittest technique. Yes, they use this to select their seedlings of resistance. But getting the resistance in the first place is something they apparently (described above or in other threads) did in a well-thought out breeding line using multiflora and wichurana descendents.
Also, according to their information on amount of seedlings raised each year, they have about the same amount of seedlings as Austin. Yet, Austin’s roses are by far the most susceptible compared to Kordes roses. At least in my climate, which is the same as that of the UK and coastal Germany (where Kordes is located).
So they are doing more than just the numbers game.
The diminishing returns statement is true in that as we perform more crosses, within a limited gene pool, the more we do the closer we get to seing all the combinations and the more subtle the differences will be from a phenotypic perspective. I think, however, we are still seeing a good range of new material still being produced to maybe think we have but scratched the surface of what we can do, especially in the hands of innovative thinkers.
I tend to think, also, that it is easy to say that the gene pool is impoverished but I feel this is also on shaky ground when we do not fully understand the mechanisms involved it creating this trait that we lump together under the heading of disease resisitance.
Don, you missed helenae, filipes, xanthina, alabukensis, webbiana nanothamnus, moschata, soulieana, laxa and hulthemia derivatives and of course chinensis.
I’m sure I’ve forgotten some myself.
I was playing with palustris but I gave my only probable hybrid to Jadae. I hope he can do something with it.
Interesting you should mention Roxburghii Don because I was just having a conversation via e-mail regarding whether Floradora and it’s siblings are actually derivatives.
Apparently Herb Swim didn’t think so. I’ve always had my doubts.
I think moyesii is wide open for exploitation. If I DID have more space and time I would try it.
I forgot to mention I have some macrophylla descendants here too but they refuse so far to flower for me.
Certain things will not flower here. Paul Barden sent me nitida years ago but I couldn’t get it to flower. I think I gave it to Cliff.
I couldnt get moyessi ‘Geranium’ to stick to anything
I have Baby Faurax x mixed diploid pollen (Rosa rugosa alba, Rosa roxburghii normalis, Rosa primula, Rosa banksia lutescens, Rosa chinensis ‘Sanguinea’) setting up a ton of nice hips… but who knows what took and what did not. All but the Rosa rugosa alba are a major pain to use.
However, I am getting wonderful set on Tequila x Rosa virginia, so that is hopeful! Tequila should add the much needed branching habit missing from many-a-species hybrid.
I doubt Floradora is from Rosa rox., but it is possible I guess. It is also possible that maybe Floradora is a doubled female seedling of Baby Chateau, and so on… who knows yet.
Moyesii does have a lot of opportunity. The few hybrids that exist are knockouts. There are only 18 by my count and it’s not easy finding most of them.
There’s a specie rose, R. bella, that looks a lot like moyesii and the HMF reference says they’re related. It has no offspring at all, but it’s only available in Europe.
A roxburghii x macrophylla named Coryana is partly responsible for McGredy’s painted blooms. Roxburghii is tough to work with here (CT, 6a) because it’s very tender, the only one that ever actually died over the winter on me.
Coryana is the reason I used Moore’s, ‘Playtime’. It is a descendant through ‘Maxi’.
Check descendants and you will see some of the stuff I got out of it including some derived from banksia. I have more seed using ‘Playtime’ coming along now.
"The numbers are up by two orders of magnitude from what they were in the mid-twentieth century. In those days ten or twenty thousand seedlings per year was plenty to keep up. Today it requires close to a million. The trouble in doing this with a fixed gene pool is that it creates a situation of diminishing returns. This, in turn, sets the stage for an upstart to come along and change the rules or even start an entirely new game altogether. "
And:
“There is a practical limit, too, to the numbers any breeder, institutional or otherwise, can evaluate effectively. It is this more than anything that allows the smaller players to stay in the game. Numbers or not, it is still a game of strategy.”
That meet Henry’s thoughts.
Excellent words. Everything said!!!
Rosa bella is used by british breeders such as Scriven’s “Rable Rouser”.
“Rabble Rouser, its UK name which is Celebration 2000. “Seed: Anytime x (Liverpool Echo x (Flamenco (Floribunda, McGredy, 1960) x R. bella) ) Pollen: Baby Love (Miniature, Scrivens, 1992)” It basically looks like a doubled and darker version of Baby Love on the same size of bush.”
Did you read this quote from Sam McGredy? Integrating species can be an arduous journey.
A FAMILY OF ROSES
Book (1971) Page(s) 35, 36.
Maxi was bred from a species hybrid known as Rosa macrophylla coryana, a large-leaved Chinese wild rose that is very resistant to black-spot.
At p. 36:
It has taken me [Sam McGredy writing in 1971] fifteen years to get my macrophylla coryana half-way tamed. Macrophylla coryana is a rose that blooms once a year and grows up to fifteen feet tall. What I wanted to do with it was to tame it into a disease-resistant floribunda that would flower all the season with a bloom like that of a hybrid tea, and growing only four or five feet tall… The first repeat flowering seedling I got from Rosa macrophylla coryana grew eight feet tall, bolt upright, with a few miserable single rose-red flowers on top. But it did repeat.
That is why I am questionning the back cross strategy that “integrate” species genes diluting them to the point only a few rare features are preserved without real impact on genetical diversity.
There are other possible strategies such as the one Don consider when he says:
I’m finding most species hybrids look, in my opinion, too far outside the norm to appeal to most.
Without the appearance of a modern rose do we have anything people will buy?
I confess I’ve been surprised by the success of some of the current crop of shrub roses. I think they walk a fine line between what is and is not acceptable.
