Dahlia Sports

MissyWeitzel · 2023-04-29T15:25:55+00:00

Is there a compiled list somewhere of dahlia sports and the variety they sported from? I tried searching online and I can't seem to find what I'm looking for...

blown_dry

bloomhjelm what adds pleasure to the anticipation is, that it will not, like the Tulip etc, become the aggrandizing property of a few, whom Providence has favored with riches and other means

lol
Thanks for sharing these!

KitCMC

“He advises that the seeds on the outer periphery of the pollen center are largest and most likely to be singles.”
-has anyone found this to be the case, at least anecdotally?

I feel like overmanured is an apt description of so many things.

Thanks, @bloomhjelm I truly enjoyed reading your notes 😁

bloomhjelm

The whole world may be a bit overmanured some days...

I forgot to include his description of grafting a cutting onto a blind tuber as a means of propagation. He makes it sound pretty common at the time, and yet I can only find a few experiments in dahlia grafting on the Internet today. If I understand the reasoning these antique books give it is:

Pros: new cutting roots faster, blooms faster
Cons: creates a smaller plant, may not create new tubers if cutting stock doesn't have its own eye or node underground

Some grafting techniques.

bloomhjelm

Never mind. After some more Googles, I don't think there's any evidence in these documents that grafting is ever worth the effort; some are even contradicting that it's useful at all.

Bessie

bloomhjelm it's fascinating to think about the possibilities. The grafting may not be useful or practical, but I like to explore interesting ideas.

katyaker

So, what is this? A partial sport? Flower is from Day Dreamer. Photo taken on Oct 20th, 2024. All the other flowers throughout the season on 5 plants were the usual yellowy color. I am going to plant all the tubers from this plant in 2025 and see what happens.

Teddahlia

Sports that do not involve the entire plant are harder to "capture". If the yellow was on the entire flower, the sport would have affected the entire branch. Branch sports can be propagated by taking a cutting from that branch. Nearly all of the oranges you eat and many of the apples are from branch sports that were captured via cuttings.

However, your sport is just on part of a flower. No way to take a cutting of the sported portion. There is an extremely long shot possibility that this sport was caused by a transposon. If that is the case, it may be in some of the tubers or appear again in the flowers. However, the flowers will mostly look like this one with only some yellow not solid yellow. .

One of these two flowers is a sport of the other. Margaret is hoping the sported plant will breed true.

Bessie

Teddahlia I hope that sport to white(my guess) is captured. It is so, so nice.

Teddahlia

One cannot talk about sports and not include Spartacus. It was bred by the late Mick Senior who told me that Spartacus was a seedling of Edna C. crossed with Zorro. Spartacus sported to a red and white bicolor too but it reverted to solid red the next year. Some of the above sports are actually "sports of sports" . Most of these sports were "bred" by Steve Meggos of Chicago. His purple sport is missing from this collage. Steve has not revealed how he "breeds" sports. Spartacus rarely makes seeds but there are some seedlings with it's genes from traditional breeding.

SteveM

I was never able to grow Spartacus very well. The few years I grew it I did get a R/W Bicolor sport but it reverted back to solid the next year. Harvey Koop also reverted back to solid red the one time I grew it. A very interesting line of sports.

Teddahlia

When Spartacus was first introduced it was a very vigorous fairly tall plant with nice large lowers and the stems were adequate to hold up the flowers. It is really hard to find really good stock of Spartacus these days. In my experience, most of the sports have had a decline in plant vigor. The one that may have the most vigor is Vassio Meggos. JS Jenny is also above average. The purple sport was a poor growing flower that reached only 3 feet tall in my garden. None of the yellow sports have been vigorous and there have been several. Ginger Clack(Ember her daughter may be more correct) was able to get some seeds from Spartacus and I grew the seedling last year. It's name is CDP Ezra .

Bicolor is a fairly common sport in dahlias. It never is a stable sport and reverts back to a solid color the next year. If you know of one that was stable please let me know as I know of about 25 examples where the sport reverted and none where it was stable . Bicolors resulting from seeds are much more stable but not always.

SteveM

Teddahlia it seems the gene(s) that regulate color must be closely located (on the chromosome) to the gene(s) that regulate plant vigor. Sometimes (not always) a sport is less vigorous than the original plant. My first pink sport of Maarn grew on a far less vigorous plant than the strong-growing Maarn. My second sport of Maarn was the same color of pink as the first sport but this sport also had the same great vigor as the original Maarn.

Teddahlia Bicolor is a fairly common sport in dahlias. It never is a stable sport

This has been 100% true for the handful of bicolor sports I have saved. HH Berry Purple had a nice lateral bicolor sport. I saved it and the second year all three plants I saved were perfect bicolors on every first bloom. Unfortunately, within a month all three plants had reverted back to solid purple. I have had a similar experience with the other (4-5) bicolor sports I have tried to save over the years.

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