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...

SteveM

Teddahlia about a 4th generation seedling

looking blue-ish.

Teddahlia

One of these days, I will share pictures of the blue dahlia seedlings. 😚

MissyWeitzel

SteveM I haven't done anything other than planting things I want the bees to cross near each other. One of the dahlias I had planted next to Bloomquist Simple was Angel Rowyn and I'm almost certain that was the pollen parent. I have some Angel Rowyn seedlings growing too but no flowers yet. One of them has darker foliage and it has stayed dark. I would love to work toward a large and almost black collarette with a dark center and dark stems and foliage.
If I'm being completely honest, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with the amount of data collecting it takes to do all this. I definitely need to spend some time getting myself set up for success!

Teddahlia

Dr. Keith Hammett has been working on black foliage plants for well over 50 years. His Mystic series sold in nurseries has very dark foliage, nice pretty flowers and dark pollen centers. When I went to his breeding seminar in about 2009, he was just starting to breed the Mystic flowers and could not help but to divulge some of his breeding "secrets" . He stuttered when someone asked about dark pollen centers in dahlias and danced around the subject trying to protect the secret that he had been breeding for them in this series. I always say that his breeding methods are very effective and that I know of no one(including myself) that breeds the same way. I will private email you if you want more details.

MissyWeitzel

Teddahlia I would love to hear more details, Ted! I have listened to a few different podcast episodes that had Keith Hammet as a guest but it has been a while and I'm awful forgetful. When Rosie and Eugene from River's did a zoom presentation for our WMDS meeting several months ago Rosie mentioned she was working on collarettes with dark centers.

Bessie

Teddahlia of course I'd like to know too about breeding dark centers🤓, that's what this forum is all about for me. I appreciate learning from others, and giving back any knowledge I may have gained.

Teddahlia

Dark centers: On fully double dahlias you are not supposed to see the pollen center. We grow no open center varieties(except one anemone). So, the breeding of them is not in my skillset.

Teddahlia

Seedling from our breeding line that goes back 5 generations.

Teddahlia

Not much going on in this thread. We are behind in our evaluation of seedlings for a few reasons. Most recently it has been too hot with temps right at 100F and we do not work well out the heat and the flowers do not look good either. Another inevitable reason is that we are getting older and tags that identify the seedlings are nearly always hiding from us despite careful placement when planted. The process is to cruise rows of seedlings and when one looks good you "go to earth" and find the tag. Then somehow your aged body that gets down onto the ground very easily must be raised up(sounds easy to you young ones) to take some pictures and to make some written notes. Picture of flower with a tag or flagging tape in it is taken. It sounds so easy. So, laziness sets in and quite often one just cruises the flowers with the camera and shoots pictures that are quite often are not identified. We always vow to do better on picture identification.
Unknown seedling.

Bessie

Teddahlia I get it completely! I got on the ground yesterday, and then used a permanent marker to put the id, "a label" on the plant by writing on some prominent leaves near buds. The basket I carry around works to keep me steady as I raise myself up from the ground. I culled about 5 dahlias today, realizing they have no future.

MissyWeitzel

This week I was going to try to collect pollen to save in a vial so I could practice hand pollination for the first time. I decided to try with some collarettes and micro collarettes. I tried with 6 different varieties. For 4 of the blooms I left them on the plant and covered with organza bags and multiple times between 11am and 5pm I tried brushing over a folded white paper. I did it several days in a row. I also cut 2 different blooms and had them in a vase with a piece of paper taped around to catch any pollen and I tried brushing them multiple times a day.
There was zero visible pollen on any of them. It seems weird to me. Do dahlias produce more pollen later in the season? Or could it be weather related or some other variable?

Bessie

MissyWeitzel I have some dahlias that produce lots of pollen while other dahlias produce very little. The totally Tangerine plants (I received by mistake) has a tiny amount of pollen.
It may not look like a lot of pollen, but it's likely there. I spent some time looking at pollen under a small handheld microscope a few days ago. I touched the top of a wooden toothpick to a container with pollen, and that tiny amount of pollen contained hundreds of pollen grains in it.
Also with regards to pollen, I read a research article on pollen...
As a result of what I learned I now aim to do hand pollination when it's 65-75 fahrienheit outside. Also, I learned pollen decreases in viability very quickly, so now I try to not store it very long. The article was on test tube pollination. The article mentioned that the pollen viability was varietal dependent on the variety of yam (plant under test).

Teddahlia

Margaret does not save pollen. Ripe flowers are used. She always says the insects try to eat pollen before she uses it. I remember reading an article years ago about an Asian farm that hand pollinated the Asian pears using chicken feathers and pollen that was extended with wheat flower. It was so successful that they still needed to thin the trees of excess fruit.

Bessie

Teddahlia I'm totally off topic... in the spring my plum trees were in full bloom, and not a bee to be seen. I took a Swiffer Duster and very lightly dusted the blooms to distribute pollen. I had a nice fruit set.

MissyWeitzel

Thank you both Bessie and Ted.
It has been extremely humid and also very hot so I will simmer down and wait for some cooler weather!

calico20hill

We have a single pear tree and bought a pollinater variety this year, but were doubtful whether the new one would bloom in time since it had just arrived from the grower. Husband collected a bucket of branches from an ancient pear tree, so huge and old that the pears it sets are not very interesting, but the bees went crazy over the bucket of branches and now my little tree is loaded with 48 beautiful Orcas pears. By next year the chosen pollinator should produce and we will have way more pears then we can deal with, but I guess that is better then too few. I am sure we can find a taker for any extras, after we have shared them with our family..

According to Raintree Nursery's charts these lovely pears should be ready in about 3 weeks....

Bessie

I'm looking for advice and speculation.
As I ponder the dynamics of hybridizing dahlias I wonder if a hard green center is the opposite of an open center Dahlias.

If these two flowers in the image below are cross pollinated, would some of the seedlings, in theory, produce a tight nice center?

Both of these 2024 seedlings were culled last year.

Teddahlia

Both maladies(open center and green center) cause me to cull them but since we switched to culling by just not digging them at the end of the year, some plants have green centers that go away and are marked for retention. The same can be said for open center and some start off open center and improve. If you are a person who culls based on the first flower or two, they are missed.
And I did not answer the question. You can see I have no idea. I just cull them. There is a good breeding theory that if a seedling is pretty much perfect in every way except for one bad trait, that it is only one generation away from getting that bad trait fixed. However, it is likely that one or more of the good traits would fail and retaining all the good traits may be an issue. Example: You finally got seed from a giant dahlia and the seedling flower is huge but has an open(but not real bad) center. You cross it back to the good center plant and you will get some closed center flowers, probably in that one generation. Another example: You finally got some seedlings from a giant flower but they are not giant but are only "B" sized. You have a good thing going here as the "B" sized flowers probably will make seeds(giants seldom make seeds) and you are only one generation away from getting a giant flower if you cross back to a giant flower. This answer is miles away from your original question.

Bessie

Teddahlia Thank you for responding. I was surprised when a green center 2024 seedling dahlia last year turned out to be a perfect dahlia this year. I'm more curious about centers on dahlia flowers than anything else. There's so much unknown about hybridizing dahlias. I appreciate your examples and relaying your experiences! I tuck the examples and info into my brain and those ideas help me decide how far I'm willing to experiment.

SteveM

@Bessie "#p17491 a hard green center is the opposite of an open center Dahlias.

Green centers can be environmental or genetic. The "genetic green-center" is a result of too high of a petal count. When the petal count is too high the center is green even when the bloom is open because there are more florets waiting to open. This type of green center could be considered the opposite of a "genetic open-centered" dahlia. With an open-centered dahlia the bloom does not have enough florets to fill the center when the bloom is fully mature. Green centers and open centers can be be caused by environmental factors (daylength or temperature) and jn these cases would not be considered opposites.
To guestimate the results of your hypothetical cross we need to have an understanding of the genetics involved. Is petal count on dahlias the result of a single loci involving only one gene and it's alleles or is the petal count determined by two or more genes. Also, I am pretty sure the single row of ray florets is a dominant gene but this doesn't explain partially-double blooms like the first bloom (left) in your cross. Is there a partially-dominate allele on the "petal count gene" or are we dealing with additional genes. This is all simplified and speculation on my part.
So, if I had to guess the results of your hypothetical cross I would guess almost all of the seedlings would have open centers and a few would be fully double. However, if you were trying to get a breeding line the seedlings would not be good genetic candidates.

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