For some reason ball dahlias are very difficult to bred due to their overly large size. Yes, I said they are too big for their britches as they have to be 3.5 inches in diameter and have the rolled up(involute) florets. That trait requires the florets to be very wide so they can roll up and that takes away from their length. A 5 inch diameter ball dahlia is a giant ball. Hilltop Ivan is one that can be that big. It is also pretty much extinct. Senior Ball was another one. The best sort of large ball in my opinion is Snoho Doris.
5 inch Snoho Doris entered by Christy Parks
How to increase Dahlia seed production?
4 days later
I found out this year that I am not very good with hand pollination. It's almost impossible to do with two toddlers in tow and a full time job, especially trying to hand pollinate several times in a day in several days. So I'm going to have to try isolation bed or culling dahlias in the main dahlia bed and let the bees do it. Previously in this post, there was mention that the late Mike Iler had an isolation bed was about 100 feet. I've have also read a bed 10 feet away from other dahlias is sufficient. I acknowledge that bee pollination will not be completey reliable when trying to polinate a specific flower to another, but I'm willing to accept that fact. Some seeds from dahlias with the desired traits will be better than no seeds. What is the recommendation on how far the isolation bed should be planted from the main dahlia beds? I'd like to hear your guys experience with this.
"I've have also read a bed 10 feet away from other dahlias is sufficient." How the heck do they know? Did they do a 100 foot spacing and 10 foot spacing and compare results? Or did they just get a few nice seedlings at 10 feet and declare that to be a success? When I talked to the late Gordie Leroux my only time( he died about a year later) he said he removed all flowers from plants that he did not want to cross with his seed parents. Then he picked extra flowers of good ones and placed a "pollen" bouquet near the seed parent plants. If you do not have success hand pollinating, why not use his method? It is probably better than isolation beds.
Teddahlia a few years ago, I took a nice pollen parent bloom(growing on the opposite side of the house), that had pollen showing, placed it in a floral water tube, and attached it to the prospective seed parent that had several blooms opening. I just needed to ensure the pollen flower had water refilled in the tube each day. Ted, I'm pretty sure your story of Gordie Leroux's bouquet method was my inspiration.
There's all kinds of floral tubes for sale, but I like the ones that have a stem for easier attachment to a Dahlia branch.
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Bessie I've used this method a few times and it worked pretty well. I didn't know they made tubes with stems, that's good to know!
GoldenTurtle I found out this year that I am not very good with hand pollination
My father bred both singles and doubles. He collected seed from the singles early in the season and then removed all the buds from the singles when the doubles were pollinated. A lot of work, but successful.
Another method I have used is to place a bucket of "pollen" blooms in a bucket and then pulled a few branches of the "mother" blooms down into the middle of the bucket, so they were surrounded by pollen blooms. All ray florets were removed from both. This method seems to give good results but does not offer the 100% guarantee you get with hand pollination or complete isolation.
SteveM That's exactly what I did this year. My singles and seedlings were planted away from my main dahlia beds - about 50 to 60 feet away. Then I worried that wasn't far enough so I let my open center dahlias go to seed first. Once those pods closed I started letting specific doubles go to seed. I cut all open center blooms right before they were completely open. I cut everything at least every 2 days anyway, so it wasn't bad to keep a closer eye on my open centers.
Next year I will reverse that and do doubles first since the pods generally take longer to mature.
I do love hearing about how other people do this. Lots of tricks to learn! Those flower pick stakes look cool. I have a rain gauge that is just a glass beaker type jar on a metal stake and that would work great for putting a whole bouquet right by the desired seed parents like Ted described. They make drink holder stakes too. You could have an easily accessible beer some times and a bee bouquet others!
Thanks for these technique tips! I'll have to get more buckets and will try to the flower tube.
Do not forget the Winkie Dahlia'(Australian) "bee tunnel". He put a plastic film "tunnel' down a row where he had planted flowers he wanted to cross. His theory was that bee would go down the tunnel and and emerge at the other end having gotten pollen along the the way and used it to pollinate his favorite seed parents.
I attended a short talk he did at a show. He was very a successful breeder despite growing dahlias in a
climate that could be compared to Death Valley. His watering methods were legendary. He died a few years ago.
Old picture.
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I recorded Margaret's hand crossed seeds onto a spreadsheet. She does not want details posted but there are a few things I can say:
(1) It was an excellent year for seed production. She set an all time record for number of seeds from one pod and the second place pod would also have set a record.
(2) Her average number of seeds per pod was up.
(3) They were nearly all waterlily crosses.
(4) She set a record for total number of hand crossed seeds
(5) She repeated very many crosses that had produced good seedlings in prior years.
(6) Despite meticulous work, some pods yielded no seeds. Reasons would include genetic incompatibility, fungus infections, weather during the pollinating.
(7) She says that if a person follows the instructions in Kristine Albrecht's book, they should be able to get hand pollinated seeds. Yes, she does some things differently but the overall methods are very similar
What type/s was she convinced to hand-cross that were not waterlilies?
None. She crossed a couple of WLs with colors she wanted.
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The subject of this thread is increasing seed production. It should be how to increase seed production from the best varieties used for breeding. Anybody can get a few hundred thousand seeds if they plant trash flowers . I literally left that many seeds on the plants this year of varieties that are not good seed parents or we already had plenty of seeds.
We have talked about hand crossing and that is not a method to get more seeds but is a method to get the right seeds. Enough on hand crossing.
Seed production from bee pollinated plants was incredible this year. Perfect weather in the Fall contributed but also remember we are not just randomly planting flowers we like and expecting seeds. We have identified varieties that make seeds and produce good seedlings. Most dahlia varieties are poor seed makers. Most dahlia varieties have genetics we do not want.
For larger flowers, I used to scoff that removing florets so that the bees can more easily access the disc center was a waste of time. Over the last 5 year or so, I have found that it is about the only way to get seeds from many large and giant varieties. Margaret told me so and I became believer when I got 15 or so seeds from a variety that had no seeds for the 5 years prior. That was about 4 years ago and I have spent more and more time removing florets. This year was the best year ever for seeds from large and giant dahlias. It is not a miracle procedure as for example Show-N-Tell did not have any seeds despite the removal of florets. It increases seed production for varieties that have the potential to make seeds.
My first seedling from an "A" sized flower that did not make seeds until I removed florets. It is nice enough to sell or place into a trial garden.