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...

Teddahlia

Those lighter color ones are culls.

SteveM

MissyWeitzel I'm curious to see if the lighter green one will make it!

I've never seen an albino seedling live much past the cotyledon stage. That one looks like it might have some chlorophyll so maybe you will get a chartreuse-leaf dahlia.🙂

Laia

Teddahlia That makes me really happy you love this trait, too & have one in the wings that’s an overachiever this way! I look forward to seeing it when Margaret & you are ready to share!

I’m in Sandy & Steve’s local dahlia society, so have been lucky enough to witness Sandia Tulip in person & hear a lot of talk about it. It really does keep that closed form, even in the middle of the sunniest day. It’s like that until the very end of the bloom’s life when it looses its petals & exposes its pollen center. I guess those skeptics will need to see a plant of it growing in gardens, to observe for themselves, since shows don’t provide sunny conditions. Sandy entered a photo of one of its blooms cut in half, to the ADS photo contest…gives an interesting perspective of it. It really does seem substantially different (in an exciting way), to my (novice) opinion. I think what you say makes a lot of sense, for it to be classified as a novelty, and perhaps even create a category for the new form. My fingers are crossed that breeding for more that do this proves successful.

Fortunately, no matter what ADS decision makers decide on the categorization front, there has been clear enough demand for it in the feedback the Boleys have gotten. I was so excited to recently find out Sandy’s decided to go ahead & make a breeding patch for this trait this year.

I do really hope to see both you & Margaret, & the Boleys, have success bringing more like this into being! I wonder if the overachiever one you have would be useful for crossing with it.

SteveM, how nice of you to find us new kids on the block encouraging, rather than annoying, who aren’t yet curbing our enthusiasm for certain aesthetics in order to stick solely within ADS categories & boxes. 🙃 I mean, I could imagine when it takes so much work & skill over the years to work towards meeting certain goals (ADS winners, often being the goals), that it might be annoying for some to hear people’s enthusiasm for blooms that not only “don’t make the cut” in service of those goals, but dive headlong in the “wrong” direction. I’m grateful for all the different perspectives we have in our dahlia community. The skeptics (as Ted so well described), the overly enthusiastic & at times unrealistic, the innovators (both experienced & novice), the guardians of accumulated tradition and knowledge, and many more…all together we make a rich community, I feel.

I also really appreciate those who despite having so much more knowledge & experience, have not become calcified but still embrace looking at things from different perspectives, and are able to be welcoming mentors & encouragers of newcomers & their novice enthusiasm & flights of interest down non-traditional paths.

Teddahlia

There are lots of people that extoll poorly formed flowers as being "good cut flowers". When someone says that it I cringe because if you had ever seriously grown cut flowers, you know that it takes many good traits to be a good cut flower and just because a flower does not fit into the recognized forms has little to do with it. There is a long list of traits that cut flowers must have and one could look at it as a list of things that must start with the most important trait of it being a "pretty" flower in a "pleasing color(s)" . Check that box and then you can apply a dozen or so things that it needs to have or at least sort of have. I have written this list several times and will only mention my favorite: "plant vigor" . No cut flower grower wants to take the time to baby the flowers and wants strong growers. I will stop there and will say that breeding successful cut flowers is harder than breeding show flowers.

SteveM

Teddahlia I will stop there and will say that breeding successful cut flowers is harder than breeding show flowers.

It is slightly more difficult to breed a good show variety than a cut variety. To breed a good show dahlia a breeder has to develop an eyer for "show form" so will have to spend a lot of time at dahlia shows - either as a judge, clerk, or exhibitor. A breeder of good show dahlias has to be able to recognize a minute improvement in a seedling over other dahlias in the same class. It can take years to develop a "show eye".

Teddahlia

A factor that is seldom mentioned about breeding cut flowers is that there are no trial gardens for cut flowers and when someone goes to buy a new variety they have very little reliable information on the suitability to grow 100 plants of it instead of an old reliable flower. One of the consequences of the lack of trial gardens is the long delay between the introduction of the flower and the popularity as a cut flower. Very many good cut flower prospects are lost along the way. I can understand the reluctance of cut flower growers to experiment with new varieties when they know the old reliable varieties make them money.

Teddahlia

There is almost no discussion of genetics in posts about dahlia breeding. The statement that dahlias are octoploid seems to stifle discussion as the permutations of having 8 chromosomes instead of 2(diploid) is too complicated to even imagine. Codominant is a new word to me. We have been taught that one gene expresses itself and in the diploid situation the recessive gene is silent. Codominant means that both genes express themselves at the same time. There is an example where a red flower gene combined with a white flower gene makes a pink flower. We were taught that that is impossible. Only one at time not both at the same time. Does this apply to dahlias?

SteveM

Teddahlia red flower gene combined with a white flower gene makes a pink flower

This is actually an example of "Incomplete dominance" rather than "codominance". The two terms are easy to confuse and I have to Google them every time I see them.

LoveLanguageDahlias

Teddahlia It's definitely a challenge to get one's head around octoploids! But what a grand adventure... (My seedlings are starting to get their first set of true leaves. Yippee!)

Teddahlia

Last night Eugene Kenyon and Rosie Cooper-Vert of Rivers Dahlias dazzled the audience of about 50-60 club members at the Portland club meeting. The subject was breeding dahlias . There were lots of pictures and dahlia stories and little gems of knowledge. Example: Why do you collect so many seeds? The superficial answer would be because they all do not sprout and I need more seeds. Or, you are obsessed with seeds and when you find seed pods in the garden you collect as many as possible? None of these reasons were Eugene's answer. He said very logically , that collecting lots of seeds is for your "seed trials" and you plant only a sampling of the seeds from a packet and monitor the results. You will find that some packets produce much better seedlings and you have the remaining seeds to plant the next year. This is a way of planting the best seeds in the seedling garden.
It was very nice presentation and he gave us a progress report on his breeding passion that is developing new fully double orchid dahlias. Lots of pictures and some pictures of works in progress and he critiqued them explained what was good and bad.
Of course I did not agree with everything they said but I was polite and kept my mouth shut. Nothing wrong said would amount to a pile of beans as they say and maybe he was right and I am wrong.

calico20hill

Teddahlia I really enjoyed The presentation with Eugene and Rosie. And I enjoyed chatting with them afterwards as well...I always enjoy people who jump into formalized groups and try new directions that enrich the supply of fun dahlias to grow...and tomorrow I am going to start the seeds in the packet they gave out....

drewtheflorist

Teddahlia I know others who abide by the " sow a sampling from a packet" theory --- in my mind, this is "assuming" that all the fertilization occurred from the same pollen parent, which in open pollinated blooms is totally false. As the ovaries continue to ripen for fertilization over the course of a day or two, who knows how many bees have visited and from where ? On hand pollinated blooms, your chances are better having a more uniform result ( if "uniform" is even possible with octaploids ).

bloomhjelm

Teddahlia I was listening in on Zoom with a couple of friends. I felt but it was nice to hear how important vigor and storage are in River's selection process. The few varieties I've grown have been some of my strongest and easiest to divide.

Teddahlia

drewtheflorist The packet sampling method helps people identify better seeds even from the same seed parent. Collect 5 packets from the same seed parent and grow 10 seedlings from each packet. The collecting would best be done at different times of the season and/or from plants in a different area and lets collect 50 seeds for each packet. . Yes, finding one good packet is nice and there will be a limited number of unplanted seeds but any method one uses to increase your odds is better than none. I enjoy reporting methods that are helpful. No, we do not do this method but on larger scale we determine what seed parents give you nice seedlings. And the goal is not necessarily a percentage of nice seedlings as a bunch of "almost nice" seedlings but no "home runs" is not good. For example a seed parent may nearly always convey one poor trait that ruins the seedlings. Having said all this , again we do not use this method.

Teddahlia

Multiplying enough tubers for trial garden entries is often a challenge. You breed a very nice flower and it makes some tubers but you need lots to to have a successful entry. Bill Mishler always seemed to have this problem and his downfall was that he did not take cuttings but only multiplied by tuber production. It is not that you need 3 tubers for each trial garden but that you need to grow very many tubers yourself to have enough to sell.

Teddahlia

Bicolor is vexing for breeders.
This one makes lots of tubers. We like lavender flowers too.

Teddahlia

Variegated flowers can be interesting. Wicked Witch does not have much form but it's colors are gothic.

Teddahlia

Pulling pot tubers and tubers for material to take cuttings. There are too many to remember and I go off our notes. We need to do a better job of notes on the second year seedlings that we keep over for a third year. The fact that we have dug and divided the tubers is good indicator but notes would be a lot better.

BackyardBouquets_17

Some of you may recall this scented seedling from last yr. So far it looks like it stored well ( I don’t baby them, if they dont make it without babying that’s just to bad) I do not grow any anenome but am wondering, would it make more sense to cross it with say something like Polka instead of a fully double since the strongest scent is at pollen shed or would that not necessarily make much difference?

I’m really anxious to see what it does/smells like this yr as last fall I could smell it just walking by the row. There were a few other less desirable ones that had a fairly strong scent that I’m now kicking myself for not saving to experiment with.

SteveM

BackyardBouquets_17 It's my understanding that scent is strongest when the plant (in general) is trying to attract insects so this would correspond to the pollen stage. However, I think the actual scent comes from the petals (or foliage) and not the pollen. You could find out if this is true for dahlias by picking off all of the florets from a bloom at pollen stage and smell them separately from the pollen center. Is it possible a fully double dahlia could have a scent, but only in the Fall when it goes open-centered? Dahlia blooms with scent are mostly (all?) open centered varieties and your chances of getting another scented dahlia will have the best odds if you cross with another scented dahlia.

Laia

BackyardBouquets_17

Hi, I happened across this old post of yours again about your scented seedling. I just wanted to mention that I started a Facebook group for discussion about scented dahlias & their hybridizing, a little while ago. It’s called “Scented Dahlias Hybridizers & Enthusiasts.” I’ve written a summary of some info in two pinned posts in the group, that you may enjoy taking a look at if you join the group.

I got a CO seedling from Hy Whitewings in ‘24, that occasionally gives off really good rose-like scent, but more often now seems to range from no scent at all, to giving off a more subdued somewhat pleasant scent, though on rare occasion the good rose scent returns. It’s highly unpredictable as far as I can figure, though it seems to be more highly correlated with when the pollen center is open, but that is not a strict and fast rule, as sometimes it has given off good scent with only the first row just barely starting to open, and other times the pollen center can be fully open with no scent being given off. It does seem to come from the center disk florets, and not from the leaves or petals / ray florets. I should probably do some reading on what’s been studied about how flowers produce scent, and see if that gives some insight.

Since that time, I’ve been paying attention to scent in dahlias, and talking with others who have been working with scent as well. I’ve noticed scent from additional seedlings, some of them also Hy Whitewings seedlings, some collarettes with different parents, one CO-AN inbetweener-form seedling of Sarah Raven, a seedling from Mary’s First (the seedling is like a WL with too few petals, showing an open center), and have noticed scent from some nice WL’s once their pollen center is open (a handful of named varieties, and one of my seedlings.) I really like this with WL’s that close their petals up, because they still look really graceful to me in a bouquet when their pollen center is open, with their petals cupped closed around it. It’s a nice treat to have some scent drift from a bouquet on the windowsill as a last hurrah before the bouquet is done. I think I will try to cross some of the WL’s with scent, to hopefully encourage this trait in seedlings.

Carina Paredes is working with scent as well, with open centereds, and she has one that people have said is similar to what Aussies call carnation form, that is a bit similar to an anemone, that she says has strong rose scent, and that the scent is strong enough to drift a ways from the plant.

Monti Cangiamilla’s anemone seedling Lake Ki Sunrise has been noted to give off scent. Someone tipped me off that the anemone Riverdance gives off scent, and Leah Hill shared that the anemone VanIsle Can Can gives off scent.

Anyway, it’s delightful to connect with someone else interested in working on scent with their seedlings! Please feel free to update along your journey with it, as I’d love hearing about it anytime!

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