Dahlia Seedling Pictures - 2024

Bessie · 2024-05-25T17:40:24+00:00

First to bloom seedlings May 21st to May 25th. I don't think there are any keepers here, but I'll wait and observe for a while. I do like the ruffled petals...

SteveM

Bessie Maybe the incandescent light was playing tricks on me.

My broker lit his coolers with florescent lights with a color temperature that was supposed to display the flower colors as true to daylight as possible. Even then, there were some varieties of dahlias I did not recognize as mine when I viewed them in his cooler. I imagine the color shift would/could be even greater with warm incandescent lighting. In the "old film-days" used different colored filters over the lens to compensate for different films and source lighting.

blown_dry

I have corrective lenses that darken in sun, but I usually don't notice until I take them off and my purchases are a different color. Ooops.

Teddahlia

Using the chemical basis for color: F. Copper has a yellow towards orange base pigment that is overlaid with some version of red to give it the so called copper color. Your F. Copper seeding is lavender and some would say light purple. In order to be that color , a flower cannot have the base pigment of F. Copper and it needs to get a different lighter white pigment that allows purple to appear. Pandora, Daydream, and Lilibet are the hollyhill varieties that could work and Kelgai Ann could too. So then, one could guess which has florets in the same shape as your seedling. Pandora has slightly pointed tips and your has round petals. Lilibet has pointed tips too. Now it is between Daydream and Kelgai Ann. I would select Daydream as the most likely candidate. This analysis is total conjecture. Hand crossing takes the guessing out of the equation and then you can repeat a cross that works.

Juliarugula

Teddahlia it’s fun to hear you break down the pollen parent possibilities - thanks for that!

Bessie

Teddahlia also, after your question regarding pollen parent, it got me thinking... Possible user error labeling seed or seedling?
This is a group of currently blooming flowers that are all labeled as F. Cooper as the seed parent:

Here is a photo of F. Copper from last summer, exhibiting some rosy tones:

Bessie

Picking up the conversation from Dahlia Seedling Pictures 2024

Teddahlia Using the chemical basis for color: F. Copper has a yellow towards orange base pigment that is overlaid with some version of red to give it the so called copper color. Your F. Copper seeding is lavender and some would say light purple. In order to be that color , a flower cannot have the base pigment of F. Copper and it needs to get a different lighter white pigment that allows purple to appear.

I was curious and did a tiny bit of online research. Based on the theory of orange pigment inheritance in dahlias, do the color of the seedlings produced by SB's Fiesta dahlia follow the orange rules you describe? Birch Bay website information:

Another example of an orange seed parent:

Teddahlia

User error is highly likely. We do not save unknown or mis-labeled seeds with one recent exception. Margaret went out and collected about 50 seeds and forgot what she collected them from but insisted on growing them anyway, saying " I would d not have collected them unless they were good ones." One seedling was labeled for retention and it has the "jokers wild" trait and we tend to keep any of them if they have a closed center.

MissyWeitzel

Teddahlia my WL seedling from last season had Ferncliff Copper as seed parent too. Also was planted in a bed next to my waterlily bed, so it could also be a coincidence. Every pic I have is terrible. It was crowded and bloomed late and it's clock faced, but I saved it to see what it looks like this year.

Teddahlia

Some seed parents are one cross away to waterlily type form. Part of magic is that the waterlily that crossed with it has duplicate genes for many of the waterlily traits and that makes them "dominant" to pass on the waterlily form. However, not all the good traits are passed on and and the seedling needs more genes from a good waterlily. Since the seedling has few waterlily genes, you hope that it will not revert back to the old form. when you use it for breeding with better waterlily. If you had started with a waterlily and bred to a waterlily , the seedlings would have more waterlily traits even in the first generation. Dr. Hammett would call the first generation outcross seedling a "mongrel" . using a dog breeding term for crossing two different breeds. Many people report that the best dogs they ever had were mongrels. However, breeding them is another story.

Bessie

Today, June 3rd, vase test Day 0. Numerical Key to seed parents: 100-Cafe au Lait, 200-Hollyhill Daydream, 300-Bahama Mama, 500-listed in notebook, 600 Ferncliff Copper, 900-Seedling 23029(Alloway Candy x unknown)

blown_dry

For diploid animals, it makes all the sense that a "mongrel" will be better. Not so much of an issue for dahlias.

Bessie

If anyone is wondering why I'm vase testing some real mongrel dahlias, it's because I am striving to "vase life test" every seedling. I hope to find a gene that relates to vase longevity, with no assumptions on the flower shape I might find that gene(If it exists).

BackyardBouquets_17

Bessie

Molly Raven supposedly has a better than average vase life. I tried to get ahold of it this yr for breeding for potentially longer vase life but didn’t have any luck.

Bessie

Today's seedling blooms. The 6" Cafe au Lait seedling has a decent center for being such an early bloom. Not sure what's going on with plants 208 and 207, (and not pictured 209) which are all shorter plants, but all three have a total plant wilt. Maybe the soil I used, or the fact they're growing in 9 ounce plastic cups, sunken in the ground? I'm liking 901 which is a very lovely, soft feminine bloom. No parent 503 has a definite blue cast, but unfortunately a seed I either found on the floor, or found dropped outside on the ground.

Bessie

Today's vase test harvest, June 8th. Pick, pick, pick, no mater stem length or bug eaten.

Teddahlia

Yours are blooming. Ours are ready to plant into the ground but waiting for me to plant named varieties and then I will have time. None are going into pots in the ground this year. It does work and they are easy to dig but do not yield as many tubers compared to the others. Pots are destroyed and many of our hard to find pots are garbage now. Advantage to ground grown plants.

Bessie

Teddahlia, I culled about 15 seedlings yesterday. If a gopher wanted to get at the roots, even in pots, there's a good chance it would have succeeded. The pots are a little bit of insurance to get the plants far enough to see a bloom. I'm not sure if I'll continue the planting of pots in the ground.
Example of what the dug up plants and pots looks like:

SteveM

Bessie he pots are a little bit of insurance to get the plants far enough to see a bloom. I'm not sure if I'll continue the planting of pots in the ground.

This year I dug a trench and lined it with hardware cloth (200 plants) and plastic crates (200 plants) to control (ha!) gophers. So far it seems to be working for gophers but now I have a rabbit staking a claim. This is a very small area (30' X 40') and is surrounded by several acres of tasty weeds but this silly wabbit insists on returning after I chase her away. It is amazing how much damage a rabbit can do to a drip system. I don't know who taught her to bite through drip tape to get water. I have seen the same thing with ravens except ravens will chew the end of a drip tape row, The rabbit chews it in the middle of a row and so it takes much time to find/repair. I suspect she must have a litter/batch/brood so I have started leaving her a water dish to satiate her craving for water. I am open to any suggestions for rabbit control (other than rabbit stew).

SteveM

There are advantages and disadvantages to any method. I grow my seedlings in one-gallon pots on a shelf in my shade house. The tubers staying contained is an advantage of this method Watering by hand every day is a disadvantage. I only grow about 50 seedlings per year.

Teddahlia

I forgot about the gopher issue and pots do make difference there. Last year our gopher trapper was able to trap most all of the gophers. I have seen none so far this year. They will be back.

Bessie

SteveM how frustrating to have to fix drip line! Leaving water for the rabbit is what I was thinking. Thankfully, I don't have any experience with rabbits. I do leave water in shallow dishes that have some rocks in them for the bees to use, so they stick around and pollinate my vegetable garden and of course the dahlias. The water is fed by a drip line, and in the summer it is never a mosquito breeding ground. Past years it seems like I have some critters that will eat tomatoes, I think just so they can get some moisture.

Krista

SteveM I’ve successfully deterred rabbits from seedlings and tender shoots in my tiny veg garden with remay laid directly over-top of the bed until the seedlings are larger. I’m not sure that wouldn’t disrupt the functionality of drip tape lines, though?

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