Re Hazeldean propagation

General Discussion
1

Hi all,

I found a tissue culture business in Kelowna, BC (Agriforest Biotech) that I’m in contact with that may be interested in tissue culturing Hazeldean and some other roses such as Prairie Peace,and others that are hard to increase with cuttings, (Musician and Carlos Perpetual come to mind, but I have neither). I haven’t heard back from them yet, so I might contact them again next week.

The Saskatchewan Rose Society has been collecting information about the whereabouts of rose cultivars on the Prairies for several years now, and is pursuing the eventual reintroduction of rarer choice hardy roses to the public. It is so far a slow and frustrating process.

I recently was in contact with a TC Masters student here at the U of S, and found out some of the problems associated with TC. The main costs seem to be developing the proper protocol for each species, but since roses have been TC for some time now, I would almost assume they should be more affordable/easy to work with as the protocol would already be known and published. I will be in contact with her again, and hopefully can convince her to take on this on as a side project. Our society doesn’t have a huge cash flow, which makes committing to an expensive TC project difficult (even a few hundred to a thousand dollars). Another possibility is a gentleman I know that does a TC lab there too, I might try and convince him to do a lab session with the students with roses, and we can reap the rewards of the resulting plants! Easier said than done, but if there’s a will, there’s a way!

I wonder if Pickering would be more interested if they could get started plantlets to grow on in their fields without the hassle of having to increase them?

I’ll keep everyone posted.

Paul, If you need more Hazeldean suckers, let me know.

I gave ten suckers this fall to a small retail only nursery/grower near town called Prairie Trees and Shrubs. I think she was going to sell some retail (if they were big enough for next year) and keep a few as stock plants to take suckers from.

Slowly but surely.

Koren in Saskatoon

2

Koren,

I had ‘Hazeldean’ tissue cultured in the late 1980’s by Dr. Bob Harris, formerly of the Agri- culture Canada Research Station, Beaverlodge, Alberta. It may have been the first rose cultivar tissue cultured in the country. Bob had retired to Victoria, B.C. and the work was done there. Eventually, I received 30 - 40 plants from him. As far as I know, he is still alive and likely would have the protocol for this cultivar. I intend to be in Victoria within a month and I can follow up on this.

But you should know that last July when I was in Saskatoon, I visited Dieter Martin (former Head Gardener at the University of Saskatchewan) at his Langham garden centre (located a few miles from the city). I was very surprised to see several 1 gal. containers of ‘Hazeldean’ for sale. “Where did you get them?”, I asked. The answer was he propagates them himself by rooting softwood cuttings under mist in late winter in his greenhouse. He has solved the prob- lem of rooting Spinosissimas from softwood cuttings! (This method keeps the foliage moist enough to keep it alive but not too much, which in a warm greenhouse during the the summer is the reason why it deteriorates and falls off before rooting begins).

Yes, I agree. ‘Musician’, ‘Prairie Peace’ and ‘Carlos Perpetual’ are at the top of the list to get propagated and distributed more widely. As far as I know, there is still only one plant of the latter in existence (at the Madeline Holloway/Sheila Holmes residence, where Bob Erskine the breeder of this cultivar lived the last years of his life).

I think Pickering is doing exactly what you mention, obtaining plantlets of rose cultivars from a wholesaler and then growing them on in their fields or greenhouse if they have one.