Sorry, Seil, I might have forgotten to alert you…Lynnie, “she a ho!” As someone told me recently, she’ll make hips from burned up flowers.
Lol, not a problem, Kim! I got those hips from Cliff two years ago and at the time I needed the confidence boost so she made me feel really good about my growing skills! I’m going to try using some of the babies this year in some crosses. We’ll see if her offspring are just as easy.
Don’t know if anyone is interested but I ordered some hybridizing tools online that arrived this week. Since I also hybridize daylilies I often browse a daylily auction website. I ordered some fliptop vials and storage boxes these will really help me organize my pollen collection and save a lot of space.
Okay, so looking at Pretty Lady, I see that she, like Baby Love, has R. davidii in her. What does R. davidii have to offer to its babies? I see that is presumed tetraploid…
Sorry it’s taken so long to post…we’ve been super busy. (No matter what the calender says, Spring is here!)
You need to remember that the ‘stuff’ we use is going to be heavily skewed toward Dr. Basye’s and Mr. Moore’s material!
Females: (Only listing the ones that set well for us)
Cal Poly (4n) - We use this one for it’s nice shrub form and yellow color. It’s black spot susc in our area.
Orange Honey (4n) - same comment as above.
Golden Gardens (4n) - same as above
Basye’s Legacy (4n) - Black spot resistant in our area, sets well and thornless. Cons: shrub is what we call ‘typical’ Basye growth. (A bit scraggly as shrubs go and bare on the bottom.) Also, can be a bit ‘stingy’ with blooms.
Basye’s Blueberry (4n) - same as comments as Basye’s Legacy
Old Blush (2n) - Used a lot for our genetic studies because it sets so well. It is moderately black spot susc, but new growth covers it quickly.
and several ‘advanced’ Basye selections.
Males: (Once again, I’m only listing ones that have worked well for us)
Roseberry Blanket (suspect it’s 4n) - It’s compact with dark green, glossy foliage. It’s more of a ‘high ground cover’ for us and it’s thorny but so far displays moderate resistance to black spot
Sweet Chariot (2n) - Great color and shrub type. It has some black spot resistance, but it could be better… (Due to petal number, it can be VERY difficult to get pollen from this plant!)
Blushing Knock Out (3n) - Mostly used for grad students studying how triploids work on 2n and 4n females.
Home Run (3n) - same as Blushing KO, but sets MUCH better
plus a whole ‘slew’ of advanced selections!
Thanks for posting Natalie.
I’m imagining, as a researcher, you guys are likely very focused on the science of hybridizing – what works and how – whereas many of us may be a little more, “gosh, wouldn’t this be interesting” if a little random… I would think that after a program of “what works” the graduates will have a better basis for beginning their creativity with stronger chances at success.
(…Kind of like learning to follow recipes before experimenting too much in the kitchen. I never was very good at that either.)
Do most of the students have ultimate goals per se when they enter the program (I would imagine the limited time in in graduate program would preclude working towards anything too ambitious, no?) or is it more about studying the mechanics and getting the foundations?
So, a number of questions present themselves:
As a university in the south, do you breed with a regional view, or with national aspirations?
Are most breeding programs long-range (i.e. planning with expectation of numerous generations before useful progeny are obtained) or short-range?
Not using Carefree Beauty? That is one that I expected to figure pretty highly in your program, for some reason…
And I forgot to ask Charles C, where are you located? I notice you use a few that I had wondered about, including a tea, which would suggest a warmer climate. Teas and chinas seem to be real troopers for us in TX, ploidy issues notwithstanding.
Hi Philip,
Ah…you would think that now wouldn’t you?! But, I guarantee, there is quite a bit of me going ‘I think it would be neat if I crossed this with that’.
Because of the time constraints of grad students usually wanting to finish in 3-4 years (they don’t really need a life do they?!) and the length of time it actually takes to produce an adequate number of seedlings AND enough years to collect all of the pertinent data, they usually have to pick up where someone left off. (Or, sometimes Dr. Byrne and I will start a project and let them finish it.)
But don’t worry! They get lots of hands on breeding experience too. (I make certain of that!) And, of course, Dr. Byrne makes certain that they help out with the evaluations as well…
Do we breed with national views or regional ones…
Initially, it was national. However, I’d have to say it’s evolved now to both.
Also, in the beginning, we were more interested in breeding everything up to the tetraploid level. Now, we don’t really worry about that anymore. In essence we keep two separate breeding lines, one at the tetraploid level and one at the diploid level. And yes, we will cross the two when we think its appropriate. (Nothing wrong with a good triploid!)
Short range or long range…
We have mostly been long range. Why? Well, because the best disease resistance we’ve been able to find is in the diploids and the bulk of commercial cultivars are tetraploid. So, trying to obtain something that has great disease resistance with flower and shrub characteristics the general public want is quite a lengthy process (but I’m sure you already realize that!). But, now that we have a few good parents, it will hopefully evolve to both short and long range-YEA!
Recently, we’ve had some commercial nurseries express interest in our material and they are currently evaluating what they thought was superior.
We also have a few gems that I’d like to get into the public domain, but I’ve got to find time to get all of the characterizations for the patents. (You have to realize that we work on peaches as well, so when we are not busy on the roses we are generally working on the peaches!)
Technically, we are using Carefree Beauty, it’s in the background of some of our ‘advanced selections’.
-Before anyone asks, I don’t mind sharing the parentage of the ‘advanced selections’…it’s just that they are generally complicated and I don’t know if I could explain it out well enough through this medium.
Example: One of the advanced selections we are using has a Basye rose called 90-202 in it’s background
90-202 = 82-1134 x 74-193
82-1134 = 65-626 x 74-193
74-193 = 65-626 x 62-322?
So, one number gives you another which gives you another…
My only ‘reprieve’ on the above example would be that I could easily say that 82-1134 is Basye’s Blueberry and tell you to look up the parentage on HelpMeFind, but so many others are not that easy.
I can just hear you and David after a long, hot day in the rose greehouses…“Hey, ain’t THIS a peach!?” Met with a raised eyebrow and an incredulous look… “That’s Fabuolous!” “No, Fabulous is a white floribunda…” “Aw, Gee Whiz!” “No…”
“Nothing wrong with a good triploid!”
On the contrary. While they might not be easiest to breed with, I believe some of the quickest rebloomers are triploid for the very reason that they don’t put a lot of energy into setting a lot of hips. I would think that when you get to a level of “one more cross and we’ve got what we’re after” there would actually be a strong temptation go triploid, no? I remember threads from a long time ago posted by some greener hybridizers expressing frustration that their fastest rebloomers wouldn’t cooperate with attempts to work with them, and trying to overcome the very thing that made them a good garden plant.
Like you, I have found that in our climate, the old diploids fare very well. Do you find, as a general rule, that F1 triploids have disease resistance on par with your diploids?
A lot of triploids are surprisingly fertile. I expected zero outcome by trying Dortmund x (Carefree Marvel x Shadow Dancer), but the male parent produced viable offspring on the first year of trying, with evidence of the diploid parent in the offspring. New Dawn is probably one of the easist examples of triploid success.