Seed counts for new mothers tested in 2014

I tested a number of new mothers in 2014. I pollinated them with pretty much every other HT and floribunda in the garden, these are all modern varieties.
Here are some observations on the average number of seeds per hip. I look forward to seeing the germination rates on these.
Sadly, I had to shovel prune my 3 Chrysler Imperials due to rose rosette disease, so no hips collected from them. However, Chrysler was a pollen parent for some of the crosses in the list below.

Big Purple: 3 hips, average 22 seeds per hip
Gold Medal: 2 hips, average 15 seeds per hip
Julia Child: 6 hips, average 7 seeds per hip
Monkey Business: 9 hips, average 17 seeds per hip
Moondance: 3 hips, average 16 seeds per hip
Neptune: 6 hips, average 7 seeds per hip;
Rosemary Harkness: 5 hips, average 14 seeds per hip
Summer Nights: 2 hips, average 17 seeds per hip

Cathy
Central NJ, zone 7a

Of all the new mothers I tested in 2014, based on 2015 germination to date, Rosemary Harkness (5 hips), Big Purple (3 hips) and Pope John Paul II (1 hip) which was not in the initial list, seem to be the only winners, with decent germination rates… I do not have the final numbers yet.
Of the other roses, Neptune had some germination, Julia Child had 1 germination, Moondance had 1 germination.

Also, all of the test seeds I treated with calcium nitrate have not germinated at all.

Question to more experienced hybridizers… how do you balance your mothers between the high hip count/high germination mothers, and those which have a low/moderate hip count but low germination?
Which strategy results in the best winners… going for the high numbers using popular mothers, or going for less prolific mothers but potentially more unusual results?

I confess that so far, embryo extraction eludes me… I wish there were a live tutorial that I could attend in the fall. YouTube videos have not helped.

Cathy
Central NJ, zone 7a

Which strategy results in the best winners… going for the high numbers using popular mothers, or going for less prolific mothers but potentially more unusual results?

How do you define a ‘winner’? Regardless, there is no correlation between fertility and ‘unusual results’ nor is there any reason to expect ‘unusual’ to equate to ‘winner’ regardless of your definition.

What I think you are actually asking is how to roll the genetic dice in the most efficient way possible to come up with a ‘winner’. If so then I would say that the first thing is to decide on what a winner is. If not, then the obvious answer is 42.

[quote=“Don”]>>
How do you define a ‘winner’ [/quote]

Don, we all have different hybridizing goals. Regardless of the hybridizer’s definition of a “winner”, which is the more successful strategy?

  1. use high hip count, high germination mothers who may be getting used by everyone else and only have 1-2 of the breeder’s desired end traits?
  2. or use mothers with lower hip and germination counts, but who are closer to the breeder’s “winner” definition, even though the seedling count will be low.

Don, what percentage of your seed mothers fall into categories 1 and 2?

Cathy
Central NJ, zone 7a

As for me I do not like the few seeds and low germination rates like with many triploids.

I privilegiate the higher germination rates and fertile mothers. More results for my work.

May be it is because I am far away from HTs, off beaten pathes and using own breed parents.

As I was beginning, an elder and quite successful breeder advised me to privilegiate the low fertility, low seed count crosses with examples of vars that were bred from very few seeds :wink:

[quote=“pierre”]
As I was beginning, an elder and quite successful breeder advised me to privilegiate the low fertility, low seed count crosses with examples of vars that were bred from very few seeds ;-)[/quote]

Merci, Pierre. I tend to prefer the low hip count, low germination roses in the hope of producing a rose that is more unusual. And using mothers that other breeders may not be using so much.

Cathy
Central NJ, zone 7a

Interesting to think about this subject.

I put an awful lot of effort into pollinating Prairie Joy, which aborts a lot of hips and seems like it gives 4-6 seeds per hip and has a fairly low germ rate. On top of that a strong percentage of the seedlings end up non-remontant and essentially useless. If I could come up with a rose that passed on all or most of Prairie Joy’s positive characteristics but was slightly more fertile and/or produced a higher percentage of reblooming offspring, well, that would be awesome. I thought my PJOP2 might be that seedling…it was the only rose in a row of OP Prairie Joy seedlings that combined good vigor with strong remontancy. But it ended up being susceptible to mildew and passed on that characteristic.

I know I have tons of All A’Twitter seedlings out in the field and it just kind of happened due to that rose’s fertility and germination. I don’t know that it is particularly disease resistant and it’s probably not hardy, it’s just that the blossoms were there beckoning me at the right time and gave a ton of seeds.

Seed count is just another characteristic, I guess, and needs to balanced with all the other hybridizing choices.

[quote=“jbergeson”]Interesting to think about this subject.

I put an awful lot of effort into pollinating Prairie Joy, which aborts a lot of hips and seems like it gives 4-6 seeds per hip and has a fairly low germ rate. On top of that a strong percentage of the seedlings end up non-remontant and essentially useless. If I could come up with a rose that passed on all or most of Prairie Joy’s positive characteristics but was slightly more fertile and/or produced a higher percentage of reblooming offspring, well, that would be awesome. I thought my PJOP2 might be that seedling…it was the only rose in a row of OP Prairie Joy seedlings that combined good vigor with strong remontancy. But it ended up being susceptible to mildew and passed on that characteristic.

I know I have tons of All A’Twitter seedlings out in the field and it just kind of happened due to that rose’s fertility and germination. I don’t know that it is particularly disease resistant and it’s probably not hardy, it’s just that the blossoms were there beckoning me at the right time and gave a ton of seeds.

Seed count is just another characteristic, I guess, and needs to balanced with all the other hybridizing choices.[/quote]

Hi joe,
Your statement above suggest you use Prairie Joy a lot as the seed parent. Did you ever tried reversing the cross and
Using PG as the pollen parent, if so what was your results?
Chuckp

I haven’t used Prairie Joy as the seed parent but I grew some Prairie Joy x Alex Mackenzie seeds that I got from another member. I got a few seedlings from them but none of them made the first year cut. I also grew some OP seeds a few years ago but I culled the last of them this year. They were somewhat hardier than PJ but weren’t nearly as disease resistant and they hadn’t bloomed in three years which is what Joe noticed also.

I had good luck using PJ as the pollen parent in 2014 on two different plants and had good hips set on both. All the hips on one plant were eaten by a deer so I didn’t get any seeds from that cross. But I got a fair amount of seedlings from the (Showy Pavement x R.blanda) x PJ cross. None of the seedlings bloomed this year but they look healthy. I made a (SP x Rb) x Cuthbert Grant cross in 2013 and those seedlings aren’t as healthy as the (SP x Rb) x PJ seem to be and most of those have been culled.

Cathy- would it make sense to first cast the net wide, going for high seed rate and high germinations, and then as you start to see examples of what you’re looking for, select these and breed them, having much more patience for low seed rate and germination? I haven’t really thought about this before your question, but I think that’s what I’m doing. Looking at other breeders’ results, there seems to be a real “numbers game” involved in much of it. Get a whole lot of babies, then select with a lot of rigour. Then start focussing in on exactly what you’re looking for.

Chuck, I know I’ve used PJ as a pollen parent, but I can’t seem to remember how it turned out or why I haven’t done it more often. Perhaps not a lot of anthers or pollen release, but I’m not sure. Sorry, I just can’t remember. I know that my PJ in pots in the greenhouse set much fatter hips than do the plants grown outside.

In general, in regards to seed count, I want to comment that so much more time, effort, and space ends up being accorded to the seedlings of very seed fertile parents that it can warp your hybridizing efforts away from ideal goals. For example, I have way more All A’Twitter and Yellow Brick Road seedlings than their qualities would merit. I would rather have tons of seedlings from White Out and Sunrise Sunset, but it just doesn’t happen. So seed count is important…it is a characteristic that barges its way into our efforts whether we intend it to or not. I think it’s a worthwhile goal to come up with a seed parent that imparts the good qualities we want while having a high seed count and good germination rate.

Using Prairie Joy as a parent–either way–is sort of an adventure and you have to prepare yourself for tremendous variation in seedlings–and a lot of disappointment. I echo the experience of both Joe and Paul, but I still think that Prairie Joy has incredible potential. I have had big and extremely dense and healthy seedlings that produce only a few blooms (usually due to winter dieback here) and no repeat. But the foliage is breathtakingly lovely and the plants are vigorous and healthy–so close and yet so far from what I am looking for. I still have several of these that I continue to watch and I simply can’t discard them–waiting for a miracle, I guess–or the chance to continue on to another generation. Unfortunately, the opportunity for obtaining repeat from these once bloomers in another generation just hasn’t panned out yet. However, the miracles do occur in the first generation. I had several second year seedlings this year with Prairie Joy as the pollen parent that showed very good repeat, abundant bloom, and continued good health in their second season–still a long way to go but promising. This past summer it seemed like almost every second year seedling I have which bloomed this season produced hips and that included some of the PJ seedlings–so obtaining better fertility is a possibility. My current thinking is that I would prefer to use PJ as a pollen parent–probably based on observing this season’s results. One thing I love about using PJ as a parent is that it definitely increases petal counts and produces some very lovely blooms. Joe, I kept that Morden Sunrise x Prairie Joy seedling you shared with me for several seasons. It had incredibly lovely color and beautiful blooms, great fragrance, excellent fertility–and (unfortunately) Morden Sunrise’s tendency towards terrible black spot. It definitely demonstrated that Prairie Joy could be used successfully–but probably with a partner with better health. Of all the parents I have used I still think that PJ is one of the best.