My Stanwell Perpetual has had a few straggling flowers and now suddenly it has 25 flowers that are all about two days away from opening. Do you guys think this is the big flush or should I wait before pollinating for more?
(When I bought it a few months ago it wasn’t in the best condition, it had maybe 4 sets of leaves, so it is a bit scraggly)
If the plant appears to have settled in and is stable, and if you aren’t limited in the amount of pollen you wish to use, sure, start pollinating. If the plant won’t carry the hips, it will shed them, but you won’t know until you try.
If you manage to get hips I will be massively jealous but I am doubtful! Good luck!
Thanks! I’m planning on using Rhapsody in blue’s pollen on it. It’s my only diploid so I hope the diploid-tetraploid relationship may help a bit with the seed production
Hey, why would a diploid being used on a tetraploid increase chance of hip set? Not heard this before
I read here on the site that if you do a tetraploid X diploid crossing, instead of a diploid X tetraploid cross that it can yield more achenes per hip, I’ll link the thread as soon as I find it.
But from what I also read on the site I don’t think ploidy even needs to be considered or in the case above that it would make that much of a difference. In my case the extra chance of achenes offers a bit of consolation as my golden wings hasn’t made any flowers yet, (I planned a Stanwell X Golden wings) and I don’t want to use some of my other floribunda/HT roses that I believe are most likely tetraploids
Edit: @James_D it seems I may have had my wires crossed, I’ve found this from TAMU
https://roses.tamu.edu/research/methodology/
It seems that it could be the other way around and not that black and white regarding achenes and hip set? Maybe someone can speak from personal experience?
Here is the original post I was thinking about:
https://forum.rosehybridizers.org/t/a-question-about-diploid-pollen/752
Even if you did get more seeds, they would basically all be triploids so might struggle to go much further with them unless you are majorly lucky! Keep us posted. Good to experiment
So far I have had 21 aborted hips out of 25 pollinations, the 4 that remain were done recently. My pollen application did vary in amounts as I applied however, so this is by no means scientific. All of them became a bit soft and felt almost hollow if you squeezed them a few weeks later. When I sliced them open they all were simply white fluff, however, I did find one that seemed to form the very early stages of achenes before it aborted.
It may be a bit early but I’m going to switch to golden wings when I have enough pollen to see if my rate will improve.
Edit: It also just struck me that I have loads of Stanwell perpetual pollen, so I’ll self it and see if I get any results
‘Stanwell Perpetual’ is a tetraploid (just in case that’s in question), but I can’t recall ever seeing it produce hips. It seems to me that would be much better to use its pollen on any other tetraploid rose that is typically a good seed parent for you.
Stefan
Reading that thread that you had linked to, I don’t see any support for the idea that using diploid pollen on a tetraploid would yield more seeds. In fact, in my experience, the opposite is generally true (however, any [typically few] seeds that you do get may be more likely to yield tetraploid seedlings due to selection for unreduced gametes). However, I also don’t believe for a second that Rhapsody in Blue is a diploid, based on its background and breeding history. It’s probably either triploid or tetraploid.
Stefan
I thought I might as well try experimenting with it instead of leaving it idle, but I’m quickly experiencing what you’re saying. I have read in some threads that using spin pollen or selfing it (selfing it I don’t find ideal) can induce hip formation. My options for spin descendant pollen parents are
Frühlingsmorgen (tetraploid), Klaus Groth (?), and Harrison’s Yellow (triploid) all had species spins as their pollen parents, but I’m not sure if the latter is fertile. I’ll aquire one of them later, but for now my golden wings is starting to bloom, so I’ll do reciprocal crosses and see if I get anything.
I also wondered how viable the results of that study could have been, with rose genetics being what it is, I doubt that pure ploidy alone can viably be tested as a factor for hip set or germinations without considering how different species interact.
Your findings are interesting, I’ll take it into account with my future crosses.
When I read on HMF that RIB was diploid it did seem that the ploidy was too low for all the crosses involved in getting it, but I thought it might be a quirk of nature. The only other diploid I have is brunonii (but I wonder if it isn’t too distant to yield anything as a pollen parent), I’ll have to test it.
I haven’t heard the term spin pollen. Could you define what that means?
Spin is an abbreviation I’ve found on a few threads here for spinosissima. It’s a lot easier and quicker to type spin over spinosissima.
Thanks. Following your progress with interest. I have a Stanwell Perpetual just getting established and only had a few blooms this year. Hopefully next year I can get some good experiments in as well.
Absolutely! Spin is often preferred, particularly by those of us who usually don’t grow them (they get “summer stem crud” in my climate and look wretched, and we often haven’t had sufficient winter chill without the summer heat to negate it for them to flower well), but are otherwise gorgeous things. Not having to type the name with any frequency, I forget how to spell it and find myself increasing lazy enough to not want to have to look it up every time I wish to refer to them, so “Spin” it is!
Is summer stem crud mildew?
Not really. It is blotches of darkened areas which don’t appear to damage the rose at all. Damasks and Centifolias do it in desert climates, also. It doesn’t appear to be fungal. I’ve never tried spraying anything on it as I ditched using chemicals many years before I obtained my first Spin. It’s just “crud”, unattractive and detracting from the plants beauty.
Do you have any pictures of it?
Sorry, no. It would have been 35mm slides taken over 20 years ago. I had to reduce the number of plants and concentrated on those happiest to be where I was.
