How does one evaluate seedlings that show poor vigour on their own roots… I’ve heard Paul Barden mention that one of Tom Carruth’s varieties, ‘Ebb Tide’, does poorly on its own roots… one might wonder how such a rose gets past the initial culling phase? Do you, as a rule, graft all seedlings that show poor vigour to see if it warrants keeping as a grafted variety??? I don’t want to do this because I want to grow own-root roses… but I wonder how such roses are treated?
“Do you, as a rule, graft all seedlings that show poor vigour to see if it warrants keeping as a grafted variety???”
Absolutely not. We have an entire race of roses that, for the most part, were evaluated only as grafted plants: the HTs. The result is that this group was never selected for the ability to grow on their own roots and many, many cultivars really and truly suck as own-root plants. Who needs that???
If you want to breed plants that are intended to be grown on their own roots, then select accordingly, don’t bud them and then evaluate. I cull plants with excellent flowers if the plant doesn’t perform on its own roots. I just don’t have any patience anymore for seedlings that don’t measure up unless grafted to a foreign root variety.
Opinions will vary on this subject, of course. It depends what your goals are.
Paul
PS: Christian Berard told me it was ‘Midnight Blue’ that didn’t perform well on its own roots, not ‘Ebb Tide’. Just to set the record straight.
To a great degree it also depends on where you want to market your plants. It’s asking a great deal of a rose to expect it to perform well everywhere on it’s own roots.
That said, you can really see the difference in philosophy when you compare the rooting abilities of roses from different hybridizers. Ralph Moore’s roses, in particular, shine in their ability to root. The more I study his work the more I realize what a maverick he is on every level.
Ahhh yes… that’s right… and I said I had a few cuttings of ‘Ebb Tide’ in and I would let you know how it went… suffering from CRAFT syndrome.
Just to reiterate: "I don’t want to do this because I want to grow own-root roses… " and this is all hypothetical… just thinking out loud… it doesn’t fit what I want to ‘hang my hat on’ in rose breeding… just curious.
Ok… so ‘Midnight Blue’ doesn’t perform well on its own roots then… I know a lot of people here have benefitted from the choice not to cull it because it allegedly performed poorly on its own roots… I guess this is partly the reason why I asked. Personally I would probably do it to keep a line going for breeding if it had a quality I wanted so long as I kept selecting future seedlings based on own-root vigour etc… I’m just wondering how much leeway people give such seedlings… for example if you performed a wide cross and you really wanted to grow it on to see what characteristics it had to use for future breeding but it was a poor grower… is it because it is a poor grower because of a general genetic mismatch or is it a poor grower on its own roots and if driven by a healthy root system would it reveal the traits it has more effectively and prove useful in producing better progeny in the future that may be more fertile, possess the qualities you wanted in the first place and have own-root vigour?
“The more I study his work the more I realize what a maverick he is on every level”
For the most part, Mr. Moore didn’t run his nursery like a business, nor did he use it to make a living. He was fortunate to live in a time and in a situation where such things were possible. There was virtually no one breeding miniatures, among other things. He had almost no competition early on. He used his work to satisfy his own personal curiosity, as most of us do, but on a grander scale.