Hybridizing Dahlias

Bessie · 2023-09-14T03:43:02+00:00

Krista to discover if seeds are growing in the seed pod, after there are no remaining anthers on the pod, gently squeeze the pods between your thumb and fing...

Emilyp

MissyWeitzel Me too! But I use the big plates. Sometimes I draw a line down the middle to keep two varieties separate, and then hope that I don't bump the plate and mix up the seeds (which I often do).

Teddahlia

I shuck one variety at time, count the seeds and place immediately into the number 7 coin envelope. The envelopes remain on the kitchen table for several weeks and are thoroughly dry when stored. On of the more enjoyable activities is sorting the envelopes and then in 2022 I actually put a seed count onto the Excel spread sheet. Did not do that in 2023 but may well do it again for 2024 seeds. I bet we will have more seeds in 2024 than in 2022. Margaret is hand crossing this year and did not do so in 2023. She already set record this year for number of seeds in one pod. Having said that she also identified many incompatible crosses that produced no seeds. It is tempting to repeat crosses that produce seeds but the real measure are crosses that produced good seedlings. She repeated one of the best from the last time she hand crossed.
This is the double seedpod that is now fully ripe. I picked it today and tomorrow will shuck the seeds.

bloomhjelm

Excel is a wonderful tool. I use spreadsheets heavily twice a season and forget them for the remaining ten months a year.

I recently found my dad's ice fishing logs and I think I know where I get it now. He tracks: fish type, hole number, fisherman, time and date, fish length/weight, lake site, and even local gas prices to get up to the lake.

Teddahlia

One of the dahlia club members who is not in good health recently and is about 10 years older than me, was a college instructor and taught database programs in their infancy. Most of what he said to me about such things went over my head. He said that a database program was much more powerful than spreadsheets and he kept some of the club records on a database instead of Excel. His Excel spreadsheets for the clubs finances were always very professional and he loved doing income and expense projections for the club's budget and printing reams of paper for all the board members.
Excel spreadsheets really help in dahlia breeding. Information is what you need to plan crosses and when you plant thousands of seeds over the years, your memory is beyond deficient. When you set up your spreadsheet, too much of a good thing is not good in the long run as the time to feed information into the spreadsheet needs to be commensurate with the value of the data you input. If I were setting up a new Excel spreadsheet, I would add a column for a picture of the seedling. I would not embed the actual picture but would put a link to it and keep the pictures in the "cloud" on something like my Google drive.
Dick Parshall has recorded the ADS classification and parent of every seedling that dared to bloom in his garden. He has it on a paper record and said the paper stack is about a foot tall. It is a goldmine of information that is essentially useless.

Teddahlia

We are harvesting Margaret's hand crossed seed pods and every time I extract lots of seeds from a pod she is very happy. However, a percentage of crosses do not "take" and the pod is empty. A few have rotted before we harvested them despite the fact we have inspected the pods for rot several times. Lots of seeds this year and lots more to harvest. She is no longer pollinating and quit about 5 days ago as it is too cold and wet to take.

MissyWeitzel

When saving first year seedlings, do you keep the clump whole, roughly chop it in 2 or 3 pieces, or actually divide out and keep all the tubers? How many plants do you grow of each in year two?
Picture is a seedling I'm not saving.

Teddahlia

First year seedlings average 3-4 tubers that I divide and store. If it is a very small clump , I still divide it into two pieces and that is better than not dividing. I would say about 95% of first year selections make it to a second year.

Teddahlia

Some thoughts on breeding.
Selecting the seedlings to keep over another year is the essence of dahlia breeding. Why the hell did you grow all those seedlings if you were not going to keep any? Actually, people who do not have enough growing area to keep over a lot of seedlings are forced to make some difficult decisions. They can only keep a limited number and lets propose the number is 10. If they grew 100 seedlings that is 10%. Is 10 the right number or is it just “the 10 best ones” as I like more than 10? A beginner breeder without much dahlia experience will want to keep a lot more than 10. An experienced dahlia grower who knows well the varieties that are being grown for the various purposes will probably only keep 2 or 3 out of the 100. Mr. “Show Only” will on average select not even one of the seedlings to keep. What is the correct number to keep? And I left off the most important factor of all. A beginner will keep seeds from just about anything and since he is a beginner at growing dahlias his philosophy may be “one dahlia is as good as another”. The experienced breeder cringes at this because he has for many years selected seeds only from the best examples possible and still has very high failure rate.
So what is the answer on how many to keep? I have noticed over the years that people will keep about the same percentage and the flowers they select will get better over time. Their seed selection to yield the better flowers improves at about the same rate as their ability to evaluate the good ones. So, I like the 10% number for everyone. Yes, the 10% selected by the beginner are not really very good. The 10% selected by a somewhat experienced breeder are better. And the long time successful breeder despite all the experience and skills will still select the 10%. Everybody will select some “ losers”.
But there is one more factor and that is “luck”. Dahlia genes are much like the reels on slot machine and the better breeder “rigs” his slot machine to have more winners but most pulls are still losers. The beginner has a slot machine with terrible odds but as you all know, every once in a while that terrible slot machine pays off.
So how many seedlings do we keep each year after 30 years of breeding? 10% but it does vary from year to year. 13% one year, 8% another, about 9% this year. There are “vintage” years when there are more good ones.

bloomhjelm

I follow a lot of people who have been hybridizing for 1-2 years and many of them are naming their seedlings after 1-2 years, or have a very high keep rate. One grower got 4 plants from a HH Daydream and Carolina Wagemans and I believe has named all the first blooms. She says she knows this against the norm, but she is not growing for show so she doesn't care.

I am a novice grower myself so I don't have any credibility to huff and puff about any of this. But I do value the method which only saves 1-10% of seedlings over the course of 3 years and I would hate for that to become a small minority of hybridizers. The hard work and patience is part of the art, isn't it? But hardly anybody aspires to make legacy heirloom varieties and it seems most people just want to be the creator of something pretty. I am telling myself "don't yuck other people's yum" because at the end of the day, anything which stokes your passion should be good, and it's an open market where I choose what I want to acquire.

Teddahlia

I am a judge at the trial gardens and I am always amazed that a high percentage of the entries should not be there. Generally, they do not get a lot of admiration from the general public either and they cannot say "it was so pretty". Judges will wink and pass a really pretty flower that has not so good form. I often give them a score just over 85 and that is code for "pretty flower, but not a show flower".

Teddahlia

Breeding has a huge element of planting seeds from varieties that you like rather than a lot of sophisticated genetics. I like HH Snowdrop and even though it can take opening 10 pods to get 5 seeds, I have collected numerous seeds as it has numerous flowers. It's seedlings are interesting. One was twice the size of it's parent this year. I would like to get some like Snowdrop in different colors. We need a whole color collection of 7 foot tall poms.

Krista

Teddahlia We need a whole color collection of 7 foot tall poms.

Hear, hear, this dahlia hybridizer speaks for the people!

Ailhad

Teddahlia Hollyhill Snowdrop also grows very well in our hot and humid MA coastal weather. It's a favorite of mine. I showed it this year and it won best Pom. Now I wished I'd left more seedpods since I didn't find any seeds in the few I checked.

calico20hill

yes, please!

DarcyD

HH Snowdrop is one of my all time favs I’ve grown. Completely agree that more are needed in other colors. I decided this year I’m done d.o.n.e. with all the 1-2 foot MBs. I just don’t like short dahlias. Please breed more HH Snowdrops Ted!!

Krista

Sharing Larry Smith’s YouTube video “Highlights of the 2024 Canby Trial (test) Garden” It’s so nice to see this year’s results from Canby!

bloomhjelm

Congrats Mr. Kennedy on Hollyhill Sincerely. It's lovely.

Juliarugula

bloomhjelm Congrats Mr. Kennedy on Hollyhill Sincerely. It's lovely.

Indeed. That photo took my breath away - can’t wait to see more! HH Minuet looks sweet too.

SteveM

bloomhjelm Congrats Mr. Kennedy on Hollyhill Sincerely. It's lovely.

Congratulations! Is that the highest score ever at the Canby Trial Garden?

Teddahlia

I figured out how to get lots of seeds from Snowdrop and it is quire logical: just check more pods. It makes a bazillion flowers and persistence works.

calico20hill

Teddahlia Hmmmm, I wonder if HH Snowdrop is still standing in my garden...? I will have to see where Mr Dahlia Digger is working...It seemed like I had fewer seed pods this year. I've saved a lot of seeds but had fewer to save from. At least I DID get seeds to save unlike last year when we had early frost.

Teddahlia

We dug this seedling and it is one of my favorites from the 2024 seedlings. It probably will not win a lot in the shows as the florets do not go completely back to the stem but technically they do not have to as the rule is the depth in relation to the width and this one does very well. Over 4inches in diameter and 6 feet tall.

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