Streamlining Goals

[Anonymous]

Jim, you are certainly giving me a great deal to think about, which is always good. Some thoughts emerging that may expand my personal boundaries a little, or at the very least challenge some of my tolerance levels. LOL Always a good idea to try out the view of another perspective from time to time.

The issue you discovered with ‘Baby Claire’ certainly mirrors my concern about the ‘Gemini’ x ‘Day Breaker’ seedlings I did keep. Since they all were so similar I discarded at face value without thought (at that time) to the further breeding potential and capabilities. Ahh well…clarity of vision is always 20-20 in hindsight. I will have to give them all a try this year to see if any are particularly fertile. I will likely try crossing all of them with ‘Honey Bouquet’, which is my unofficial designated “tag team” member for ‘Day Breaker’ (i.e. I use ‘Day Breaker’ and ‘Honey Bouquet’ somewhat interchangeably for certain breeding goals).

Your cross of ‘Gemini’ x ‘Sunset Celebration’ sounds interesting and I think I may remember seeing some photos of some of your seedlings from this cross. That may actually have been before I did my cross of ‘Gemini’ x ‘Day Breaker’. I don’t recall exactly, but your cross is definitely ringing a bell with me.

You also make an excellent point with your story of ‘Baby Claire’ for circumstances that would make even me more willing to do large quantities of the same cross. Although, 135 hips I could not imagine doing. That is almost half the number of total hips I work with each year let alone from one cross! LOL You continually amaze me.

Excellent discussion topic. It has really made me do a great deal of thinking about some of my perspectives and perceptions.

[Anonymous]

Let’s see, Jim… what was it I said in the earlier post?..

“You, Jim, probably germinate a lot more seedlings than most of us, and would presumably have a better chance of realizing the goals of a specific cross than most of us were you to focus massive resources on one cross.”

Let me scratch the “probably” from that…

[Anonymous]

Michelle, the best crosses are the ones that give a great diversity among the seedlings (as you mentioned earlier). These are not boring but also by virtue of the diverseness of the seedlings really deserve to be repeated as much as possible. When in the diverseness of the seedlings you can find one seedling with great foliage (but simple blooms), and another with wonderful plant habit (but pink blooms),and still another with fantastic disease resistance (but poor plant habit), it seems highly likely that given a larger number of seedlings, all of the traits can be combined. Perhaps that is only wishful thinking, but I keep on trying!

Philip, you were also right that by focusing too many resources in one direction, the return was not very good with my ‘Fairhope’ X ‘Hot Tamale’ cross! Part of the problem of that cross was that a large number of the seedlings were horribly mildew prone. I have since tried to only use pollens from very clean roses on ‘Fairhope’.

Jim Sproul