Last year I used Alba Maxima as a pollinator ,of the 3 I kept, 2 did not flower and 1 is repeat blooming. Alba Maxima is 4+2 , so putting the pollen on a modern was the easiest way to go, next year I will try the other way and see what happens. Any one out there had any experience crossing Alba’s with moderns?
To add to what Don said. The unbalanced meiosis of the Dog roses is unique in that it is not seen in any other roses, but I believe it is not seen anywhere else in the plant or animal kingdoms. I
Sooooo… for a triploid like Flower Carpet White, do its somatic cells contain 7 chromosomes paired (7x2=14 chromosomes) and one set of seven chromosomes unpaired in each cell??
In a word yes. In triploid roses where the parents have similar genetic backgrounds and the chromosomes are all similar I would speculate that which chromosomes pair would be random. But in triploids where the parents are dissimilar I wonder if the two sets of chromosomes from one parent would always pair and the set from the other parent would be the odd man out so to speak. I have a triploid R.blanda x Great Wall seedling where R.blanda contributed one set of chromosomes and Great Wall contributed two sets. I wonder if the chromosomes from Great Wall always pair and the chromosomes from R.blanda are left out. This sort of thing happens with autotetraploids where a diploid rose from a wide cross spontaneously doubles its chromosomes and becomes a tetraploid. The chromosomes from each respective parent then pairs up with its double.
Keep in mind that the uneven matches are different in each species, not only in traits but the number of female possibilities.
Warren: Not exactly moderns, but I’m trying a few albas (hexaploid other than Felicite Parmentier) on damask perpetuals, and a couple of slightly newer roses. Aside from an experiment with Ragged Robin, none of them have any known China ancestry, since China genes seem to guarantee PM problems where I live. Unless I try some on Rose des Peintres – which I probably won’t – Ragged Robin will also be the only prospective seed parent which is known to be non-tetraploid.
I might try Basye’s Blueberry with some albas this season, since it’s very healthy here (despite the RMV), and a bit inbred. (I may like extremely heterozygous hybrids in my garden, but limited space makes me fond of the predictability to be had from more homozygous breeding stock.)
I’m having no problems with hip set, and the seeds produced so far look big and healthy. Can’t tell you any more than that, at this point.
I wish I could pick Sievers’ brain, since he seems to be the only person in the last 150 years to work extensively with albas, but my German’s way too rusty.
The Alba hybrid I produced was a Sympathie X Alba Maxima, repeat flowering, colour deep red full double, growth is strong and healthy (which I was after). I think Alba’s do have a lot to offer health wise, the plant where I am will never show any blemish on its foliage, extraordinary plant.
I might try and breed some colour into Alba’s, have a rose Atomik whose colour is so dominate,could be interesting.
Hardy, just wondering, here at home Alba Maxima has only one seed per hip, the Alba’s you use are they same?.
Hi Paul G,
That is great information, thank you so much for sharing the knowledge you have!
Warren: pretty much. I’d say that those with two seeds per hip are a little more common than the singles, but anything over 2 would be a total fluke. I take consolation in their willingness to produce scores of hips per bush, but that’s little help if you wanted to cross them with something that’s hard to collect much pollen from.
I had noted in a recent thread that Fantin-Latour will produce 5-6 seeds/hip, and will try some Alba crosses with it this year, since I think it might ease future breeding without too badly compromising the Alba nature of the offspring.
Albas are essentially immune to everything here, as they sound like they are for you. Maybe an anthracnose freckle or two, but that’s about it.
My interest came from pondering what would have happened if, in the early-mid 1800s, breeding had taken a different course. Once people started making intentional crosses, it seems to me that roses were made and introduced in a very market-driven fashion, taking popular types of roses and crossing them with whatever was new and trendy. We got Portland->China->Tea->Multiflora as our result, but what if it didn’t happen that way? Where are the remontant Albas and Centifolias (other than maybe D. de Rohan), for example?
So I’m going back to species, near-species, and relatively simple hybrids to answer that question for myself.
You
My caninae family hybrids typically bloom in year two instead of year 3 IF the stems have horizontal placement.
If Alba Maxima was a hybrid with an Autumn Damask in it’s lineage then that would be where the repeat bloom alleles came from. If that is the case then it could be possible to get some repeat bloom offspring from it.
Howdy paul
Alba maxima was used as a pollen parent, the offspring that repeat flowered, it is quite different than both parent plants other than having red flowers, the red colouring is a lot deeper than Sympathie.
Paul, I tend to use the pollen of OGV when gunning for repeat flowering OGV look a likes, I find the ratio of sucess greater than doing it visa versa.
Link: www.rosetalkaustralia.com/t1203-repeat=flowering-alba-cross#11609
Great looking roses Warren,
Here
I started using the repeat flowering parent for seed to make it easier to determine hybridity. It’s often difficult to determine if it’s a cross when they all look like the species, but a species like seedling out of a mini is a dead giveaway. Often, too, the species will shed pollen very early while more of the modern parents don’t, or have problems shedding it at all. Kim
Thanks , Paul and Kim. Here in Deniliquin Australia temperatures in Spring are over 90F while in Summer they can go to 118F. Pollination is done when the flower is only half open, and if left longer the heat starts to shrivell the stigmas making it impossible for the pollen tubes to gain access to the ovaries. I pollinate using Jeweller’s glasses which enables me to see if pollen has been released by the seed parent and if so I disgard that bloom.
Getting a repeat flowering offspring from a once flowering type is a real bonus and does’nt come along very often, but it is possible. I stopped using a lot of Gallica’s, because of the occurrence of PM was so bad.
Cant wait to see what the R. Forrestian crosses will give me
cheers warren
Hi Warren
I used R. swegenzowii as a pollen parent several years ago and have a few seedlings here to play with, what intrigued me most was that one of them has flowered intermitently all season. Health is good, flowers produced only at the ends of long canes, soft pink in clusters. I have also used the alba rose celestial. The most impressive seedling from that cross has glaucous leaves and masses of smallish mid pink blooms for a long period in early summer. Many seeds are produced but I have not yet been able to encourage them to sprout.
All the best
Mike
Howdy Mike
Yahoo at last some one to ask a few questions about R Swegenzowii. Firstly, what did you use to pollinate it with, was the seed parent a double? and if so did the offspring show any doubling at all. Had a feeling about using these High Altitude Chinese Roses and their health that they would pass to the offspring, as I said earlier on I have R. Forrestiana crosses in stratification at the moment, it comes from around the area as R Swegenzowii.
With your Alba hybrids, you could get some of the seeds and chemically scarify them, they use to practise that technique years ago when growing R Canina for rootstock. What they used was 50% sulphuric acid at time spans of 60 to 90 seconds. You can buy acid for auto batteries which is 25% concentration and then adjust the time accordingly.
What did you cross the Alba with Mike?
cheers Warren
Hi Warren
The swegenzowii cross was with the Harkness rose Princess of wales. Semi-double white. This rose is receptive to anyones pollen so I employ it to test what I imagine may be a difficult cross.
The seedling is almost 3 meters high in its second year. No sign of doubling on this one but very few thorns. I did not get the opportunity to try this variety out in crosses this year.
I have tried a few things to get the alba seeds to germinate but to no avail. I have used the pollen quite a bit this past season so will look forward to that. There was only the one seedling that showed alba influence out of quite a few. The mom was a seedling of mine from sexy rexy crossed with pearl drift. Single pale pink.
Cheers
Mike
Harvested the seed of the cross (Wendy X Gold Bunny) X R. sweginzowii. The seed looks quite good and plump and in large numbers as well, didn’t expect to get so many. One should n’t crow to early as they have to germinate and grow first.