My name is Maria and I am a documentary filmmaker working for PlantPop, a horticultural film studio. Currently, I am in production of a feature length film on roses! I thought this would be the perfect place to get in touch with more experts and hybridizers who want to share their love for roses and knowledge.
Currently, I am looking for locations that I can find rare roses. Ones with unique genetics that came out looking different than something we are used to seeing. For example, the floral organs developed as leaf like organs, etc.
I am also looking for someone who can fully and clearly explain on camera how “thorns” are selectively bred out of roses.
Anyone who is interested, or has a suggestion, please feel free to email me: maria@plantpop.com
I am cameraman and video editor. Maybe you can make a production about the next generation rose creators and their goal. Thorns are maybe more an area of the ones who work with cutroses. Every generation has his/her own new goal. The last 10 years a lot work has done with hulthima, stripes, fragrance and desease resistance roses.
I agree with this. Breeding for thornlessness is something I mentally associate with the work of Davidson and others in the late 20th century. I’m sure there’s always an appreciation by the buying public for that trait, and there are definitely people still breeding with thornlessness in mind, but I really don’t see it as cutting edge.
I also agree that breeding for disease resistance and organic rose growing is much more of a current trend, and for that, Kordes and of course Radler were the ones to really change the game IMO. I think it would be great to highlight the efforts currently underway at several US universities to research resistance against Rose Rosette Disease. That is a real challenge for the years to come.
A bigger problem is that a working construct for genetically heritable thornlessness has not been worked out scientifically in roses; there seem to be different genes found in different varieties, and almost none of them behave or combine in particularly predictable ways. In fact, the only reliably heritable source seems to be what Davidson discovered and then exploited in breeding his “Smooth” series. Most of those roses are essentially unobtainable now (at least in the U.S.), and the trait has not been widely transferred to other roses, so breeders attempting to raise thornless seedlings are normally forced to resort to using educated guesses when selecting prospective parents and then adopting a trial and error (usually mostly error) methodology.
In that respect, I don’t consider breeding for thornlessness in roses to be even remotely something of the past. It actually has never been realized in the same way that it has in, say, blackberries, where it is highly unusual for new cultivars to be introduced now if they have prickles.
Hi! I am open to that idea if the story fits! If you or someone you know might be interested in talking about this further feel free to email me maria@plantpop.com. Thanks!!
I’m not experienced nor accomplished enough to be the one, but there are a lot of people on here who are both, and who I hope will contact you. Or hopefully those who see this will direct the more qualified individuals your way. Regardless, thanks for doing this!!
Thornlessness appears to be something that can be triggered through various species, as Stefan has suggested, and like many heritable traits in the genus, it is poorly understood. Many times in the history of hybridizing roses, new and unique traits have emerged simply by blending disparate species — seemingly an act that unleashes behaviors not seen prior.
That said, there are some breeding lines that have the ability to impart thornlessness to their offspring, perhaps most notably Basye’s ‘Commander Gillette’ and its subsequent hybrids. Ralph Moore used ‘Basye’s Legacy’ to create the thornless ‘My Stars’, and I used ‘My Stars’ to pair with a proprietary Bracteata hybrid and got “Star Bravo”, also totally thornless. So it seems that thornlessness is a dominant trait in that line of hybrids. It also appears that Blackspot resistance is readily passed on to offspring of ‘Basye’s Legacy’ and its subsequent hybrids. (My “Star Bravo” is not only completely thornless, but is also free of the three major fungal diseases). I think the ‘Commander Gillette’/’Basye’s Legacy’ breeding line has a great deal yet to offer hybridizers.
Note: “Star Bravo” is just the study name of the hybrid, which has yet to be registered or distributed.
Paul, I hope that you’re right about the overall potential of ‘Commander Gillette’ (which may be what is sold as ‘Basye’s Legacy’) for breeding–I agree that it has demonstrated its abilities as a source of thornlessness. On the other hand, I think that blackspot resistance for my region is going to have to come from other sources, because it is not a healthy or particularly strong rose in my eastern U.S. location. Most of its thornless descendants that I’ve grown here have also had very poor to mediocre blackspot resistance. Maybe an infusion of hybrid bracteata is just what it needs, although Out of Yesteryear and its offspring that I have grown have all been sickly, short-lived creatures for me, showing almost none of the disease resistance or extreme toughness of more direct R. bracteata hybrids.
On a related note, it’s really too bad that Miracle on the Hudson didn’t inherit the near-thornlessness of its parent Lyn Griffith, another descendant of ‘Commander Gillette’.
‘My Stars’ was an astonishingly healthy shrub, or as Kim might say — “rudely healthy”! Unfortunately mine was destroyed by Gophers a few years ago, and I doubt I will ever find another one. It produced some offspring for me that were completely free of all diseases.
I was wondering if “thornlessness” means only “no prickles on the branches”. Do the ‘Smooth series’ still have prickles at the back of the leaves on the rachis/midrib? I’m experimenting with ramblers and musk hybrids. I’ve still got about 20 3-year old plants after rigourus selection and they are very prickly. But two of them are exceptions, they maybe have 2 or 3 prickles on the whole plant (3m high, 4-5 branches). But the few prickles per leaf on the midrib, these stay. You can still “get caught” in those plants
That isn’t unusual, Karel. I’ve even found prickles on the double white Banksiae. Yes, the photos are on HMF. I attempted to link to them there, but the links wouldn’t open so here they are.
In thirty years, I’ve only found one genuine prickle like that on Annie Laurie McDowell, though she can have the little “chihuahua teeth” on the midribs.
