Parts from correspondence with a Prairie Rosarian,
“Percy Wright would put his seeds in tin cans of soil and keep them in a cold cellar until March. Then, he’d take them outside and bury them in a snow drift until spring.”
(Riku’s note) … based on the frost in aiti’s cold cellar (concrete block with 2x1" air vents to outside and under front concrete steps … cold cellars can be “cold” (0C+) … but potatoes did not “black decay” but would sprout.
… another view, Dr. Svejda from book" Canadian Explorer Roses",
“We found that the most effective treatment for breaking dormancy in R rugosa seeds was the combination of 8 weeks at 20C, followed by 12 weeks at 4C.”
… “Throughout the program we treated the seeds, which were mixed with moist peat moss, wrapped in plastic and properly labelled, to warm-cold periods of 8 weeks … For the warm treatment, where temperature level should be constant the seed parcels were placed in an incubator and then transferred to a household refrigerator. The after-ripened seeds in the peat were placed on top of seed flats, covered with soil, and the resulting seedlings were potted before field plantation. The soil used was a mixture of soil, perlite and peat, generally used in our greenhouses.”
To zero I go next winter, … after cleaning, shucking and drying followed by a brief period at room temp.
Lykkefund
Year 2 - 1 winter - protected - 3-6 ft thornless canes - no bloom
Ydrerosen - Helenae hybrida X Superexcelsior 2011 Hermansson (sp?)
Year 2 - winter protected - 2-3 foot canes - tallest no thorns - lower canes thorny - repeats as noted - blooming now while fingers freezing in wind as l type - potential
Helenae hybrida - 2nd try better bush heading into winter with good multi-cane growth
Nut shell - not abandoning trial based on Lykkefunds growth and no thorns and ditto for Ydrerosen - all healthy foliage and canes no disease evident and only shiny aphid induced sap painting?
Also planted this year Hermansson’s spino hybrid - excellent growth so far no bloom but expected from spino genes - but should belong in my climate - if the Kordes only provides the color - never can have enough yellow.
I’d love to hear how Kindarosen does for you–I had run across its HMF page and bookmarked it just a few weeks ago! ‘Koresia’/Friesia/Sunsprite is usually a black spot disaster here in Maryland, but I believe it is one of those that is only susceptible to a limited number of strains, and I was able to grow it for a while without too much trouble (winter protection and related issues aside) in Minnesota. It has such a wonderful combination of strong fragrance and intense yellow color, and is worth a solid effort to improve upon its hardiness and disease resistance (and floral lifespan, since it blows so quickly). It would be interesting to get to know its parents, but they are virtually extinct at this point.
This is correct based on some research from David.
Sunsprite has a Rdr3 gene, which gives resistance to some strains of blackspot but not others (sadly, not the ones here in east coast Australia either, consistently spotty…I think there’s a fair bit of overlap in east coast usa and australia as far as strains just based on how caruth roses fair in both compared to west coast usa).
That looks beautifully healthy–I really like those red canes. I would imagine that it’s going to be a good one for you to work with (maybe not quite fully cane hardy, but good enough to carry on breeding?), but it’s bound to have some useful traits to work with if it’s fertile.
I agree, we do seem to have very similar disease pressure and cultivar performance in parts of the eastern U.S. and eastern Australia. Approximately the same blackspot strains seem to have made themselves equally at home in our regions, too. It makes me wonder if we’d also find that we have the healthiest roses in common, few though they may be.
One long term project not derailed by “wrong rose in wrong place” , and therefore still on track for now
… Lykkefund first bloom this morning after planting in 2020. Justified the little extra work to protect in winter as multiflora and derivatives, as a guide, not full cane hardy in my garden. To be used as crossing seed and pollen parent source as plenty of bloom promised. Pollen will also be stored.
The objective is to pass on thornless and climber traits to improve numbers since only Polsjarnan (sic) available as a real natural hardy hybrid climber for my climate.
Plan is to cross with hardy prairie hybrid.
Helenae hybrida (2021 planting) also going to bloom - same tender characteristic for my winters, but has thorns.
Ames rambler comes close to full hardy climber if planted on south facing wall - north facing one has never bloomed in 7 years.
That’s fantastic, and so exciting that you have gotten “Helenae Hybrida” (I truly hope that someone comes up with a real name for it soon) into North America! It is supposed to be a little hardier than ‘Lykkefund’, but such differences would probably be hard to see where both are tender.
Not wasting time as who knows what winter can do. So far,
Fedeschenkonan x Lykeefund (reserving whole floret)
Lykeefund x RDxS (same as above)
Couldn’t resist that repeat gene hiding in Fede. and hardy. And same logic for RDxS even if it doesn’t have repeat gene?, doesn’t stop blooming once starts, just peters out by fall except hardiness elevation (maybe).
Any suggestions? might have hardy rose in garden.
Not sure Isabelle S. takes me anywhere but on list but might impart elevated hardiness and turn out “ golden”.
It’ll be interesting to see if you get any results from pollinating R. fedtschenkoana with ‘Lykkefund’, since the former is tetraploid and the latter is probably diploid, and in my experience, you might mostly or only get fertilized ovules with such a cross if ‘Lykkefund’ happens to throw unreduced gametes. The reverse cross would probably work better if that happens. ‘Lykkefund’ would probably work well enough as a pollen parent with some fertile diploids, and you might try it with some fertile R. rugosa hybrids just to see what happens, although the resulting seedlings might not be very fertile for further breeding work (though you never know).
I think that your ‘Lykkefund’ x S45 cross has some serious merit, and that’s the kind of cross that I would probably concentrate on making as much as possible. Various similar crosses using any other hardy, pollen-fertile tetraploids also have a decent chance of working, unless there’s any weird incompatibility at work. S45 absolutely can produce repeat blooming seedlings, and up to half of ‘Lykkefund’ seedlings with a repeating modern pollen parent will be everblooming.
I’ve never tried using ‘Isabella Skinner’ in a cross, but I really didn’t care too much for it in Minnesota–it was quite disease prone and had that highly unpleasant linseed oil fragrance, which may or may not be bred out easily with the right pairing. It definitely strikes me as one to use as a pollen parent, if at all.
What are your cane-hardiest roses of known or suspected breeding potential, especially those that repeat? Their pollen would probably be worth throwing at ‘Lykkefund’. If there are any questionable ones, you can always mix the pollen (or double-fertilize) with something more definitely fertile so you aren’t wasting any blossoms.
Good point on Fed, will x as M on Lykkefund … as lots of florets … for 3 foot high climber.
I have decided to alter my course from original and now avoid the grinding, Fn=1 → x development path on this project (not enough biological time especially with the tread milling on finding a germination method that l happy with to some extent).
So selection of good candidates in X=1+n is an imperative. That means attributes of full hardy, climber, or wants to trait, red or basically pleasing color, and secondary a repeater with fragrance. Seed or pollen parent.
The only core musts for the end result of the project are full hardy and a real climber/ rambler in my garden environment.
Since low disease pressure here, l am not dedicated to bullet proof as the rose is for my garden.
Repeater candidates that come with full hardy are limited in my stock. Crossed that bridge tears ago when l found full hardy shows up in species and the historical crossings of modern (tender) with species for what l term F1 - a
near species, or sardonically - “near modern”.
Ignoring the exceptions like Therese Bugnet when l say that.
But here l compromise … have some limited successful explorers and mordens, and post morden program, and some modern Nordic and Knud’s repeating, to long blooming, and floriferous spino hybrids. Still trying wait to see if some are “minies” or patio as most not reached 3rd year time.
I will post my master rose list name tabulation when l make time to clean it up of the “maybe, not sure if still alive and don’t know where it is” or leave them in for a laugh.
That sounds like a fun read–but if you don’t have time to edit and are looking for some quick thoughts, you could always spitball some ideas. ‘Therese Bugnet’ would be worth a shot. Any hardy, tall R. altaica/R. spinosissima hybrid could also be interesting to try using as a pollen parent. Do you have Ross Rambler around? It has only a light linseed oil scent and probably good hardiness for the objective, although it is diploid (most R. laxa, which most folks consider ‘Ross Rambler’ to belong to, are tetraploid–the difference in ploidy is one reason I’ve have a hard time considering it to be R. laxa); I haven’t tried hard enough yet to get RR to cross with anything to have notched any successes, but I would guess that it could work in one direction or the other. On the other hand, the flowers from that cross would probably be white, which may not be quite what you’re going for (although you might not be too unhappy with a thornless or less thorny, fragrant version of ‘Polstjarnan’ if you could manage it). Do try ‘Isabella Skinner’, too. Just remember that any seeds from ‘Lykkefund’ might not respond so well to the frozen stratification method.
Have Ross Rambler # 1, great looker, and believe both a tetraploid and diploid R. Laxa growing (very young suckers) based on handed down technical analysis verbal results done in the past. Luckily tetraploid bloomed a day ago. Of course l may have mixed up “X” location spots on the verbal map.
Dabbing RR#1 on 6910, hoping for a fully double hardy red, that may or may not have laxa, as well as RDxS and Fedeschenkonan on 6910 - pure laxa test hybridizing will wait.
I had a minor chuckle caused by eye strain pollinating lykkefund stigma … other than lack thorns and yellow centre, l felt l was pollinating polsjarnan - same size blooms and form but more “blooms per floret”. That means l am going cross the two on lets see what happens.
First blooms of R. helena hybrida. May l say empathically ( explicits deleted - replaced with “dang it !!#*!!!#%! ) been too focused on lykkefunds thornless canes.
Thought l had completed my homework between two and both were to be white tinged with yellowish centre. Therefore thornless rose top pick. Not anymore top pick.
Good thing hybrida flowered. Blew hybridizing clutch box by double clutching to shift gears to hybrida. Got to get that strong starting yellow on a 20 foot full hardy climber coming from the genetics of the hybrida blooms. You’ll see a single lykkefund white bloom to left to compare.
Whew !!! that was a close as one gets to screwing up a season
Btw u’ll c very few thorns on hybrida floret source “canes”.
Fully expect blanching of the yellow but minor compared to the imaginary ascetics vision of a morning coffee and cigar under a canopy of full hardy mottled yellow and white blooms … fore!!!. Ok cigar might not meet universal goals … works for me.
First Hybrida crossing seed parents list Isabelle Skinner, Bill Reid and Olds College. First pollen parents list Isabelle Skinner, RDxS, RR1 and Fedeschenkononian.
Going F2 (or 3 if one counts unknown donor of yellow) list dependent on usual pollination actually happening and my bug bane … germination. Basically strengthen hardiness and yellow … repeat a fluke but not required.
, and therefore still on track for now
