I have once more started with my Surflan experiments. This year I have bought Nigel Hawthorne which is an infertile rugosa/persica hybrid. Although I’ve expressed that I have no real goal of breeding with persica, although I may dabble with Tigris, I am going to attempt to create an artifical fertile hybrid of Nigel Hawthorne. I’ve just finished painting the buds with the surflan/dmso solution and painted all the buds. I’m rather dumb for doing this since I should allow my plant to grow till next year, but if I lose this one… I’ll buy two more in the future. I’ve covered it with a plastic 5 gallon water bottle-dispencer. I hope there will be enough moisture inside it to keep the surflan moist enough on the buds.
At the same time, I painted the some buds of Mermaid and Purezza with the same mixture although I’m not expecting a lot from this action. I did it so I could use up all the mixture. Remember… Waste not, want not…
Enrique
Oh… if I do get luck, I will attempt to pollinate this with R. kordesii and with Joan’s rugosa hybrids.
I’ve just washed off the mixture… reapplied it again, and covered it again… Dr. Basye said that he did this 4 times… I’m going to do this for 4 times aswell and then cover it when I’m done until new growth comes. Looked like the buds are doing fine as long as I keep enough moisture for them to not dry out.
Just done this for the third time… Not looking good for a few buds… seems to be turning brown, but a few are still green and rapidly growing… I think this will be the very last treatmeant, and not do this four times as I’ve planned. With luck, I will get at least one shoot that is fertile…
Hope the little guy lives.
How is your surflan experiment going?
Just one little bud looks like its alive. The problem with this is keeping moisture within the buds. The DMSO really does a lot to those poor buds… I’m thinking about the next time, I would use petroleum to keep the moisture in them… or agar…