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
