Breeding: For Color

Krista · 2023-03-29T13:23:18+00:00

Teddahlia (starting a new discussion for this) Thank you for answering all of my questions about Giraffe. Are there other dahlias that have the same lateral...

todgor

Teddahlia

Was Clearview Leroux named in honor of this purple semi-cactus goal?

https://lobaughsdahlias.com/product/clearview-leroux-a-2023-introduction/

Teddahlia

Clearview Leroux is the surprise ending that is no longer a surprise. There is lots more to the story despite the revelation of the end of the story.

todgor

Teddahlia

Sorry Ted I didn't see you were going there! I went on the search engine in response to your comment and it popped up

Krista

Teddahlia todgor No harm done, I’m still on the edge of my seat for the meat of the story. I’ve read snippets about the origin of Clearview Leroux‘s name hinted at on various social media outlets, but the details continue to be a mystery to me!

SteveM

Teddahlia Was it Gordon who grew his seedlings in a rather small yard and planted his first-year seedlings about 2" apart? There are a lot of great Kenora varieties - Kenora Fireball was one of my favorites.

Teddahlia

I get different stories about Gordie's seedlings but he grew according to Dick Parshall about 2000 per year. However in his last year of growing while fighting Parkinsons I was told then(how does one remember minutia from 2005? ) that he grew over 2500. That was the year we grew 2200. The word in that year was that he left them in the small pots when he planted them in the ground. That was sacrilegious to us as we had never heard of planting plastic pots; what fool would do that?

Now we are switching to many more plastic pots grown in the ground. Best new method since sliced bread.

Krista

Teddahlia Wow, I’d never have guessed the practice of sink pots was new on the PNW scene as recently as 2005!

MissyWeitzel

Teddahlia my husband has Parkinson's. It's a cruel disease that takes away a little more physical and mental ability every day. It absolutely blows my mind that Leroux managed to start, plant, and tend to 2500 seedlings in later stages of PD!
Anyway, I have Clearview Leroux on order and I will look forward to seeing the big purple cactus bloom even more now!

Krista

Teddahlia The bloom in this photo looks like it has three different colors, it’s outstanding. I know there are more varieties that have three, but I can’t think of a lot. Can dahlias have more than three color combinations?

Teddahlia

Dick Parshall took over Gordie Leroux's gene pool. I bet his new one is from Gordie's breeding. I am growing a flower that Gordie used to start his line. Why not go way back and see what happens?

Bessie

These articles(saved months ago) have a fair amount of chemistry references. I like the color chart jpg link. Unfortunately, no reference to white in dahlias.

Breeding for color

https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-chemistry-of-dahlia-flower-colors
Link to Color chart
https://www.americanscientist.org/sites/americanscientist.org/files/2022-110-3-136-infographic-1700x2238.jpg

Rare color of black dahlias

https://bmcplantbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2229-12-225

Teddahlia

Nice and colorful article. There was another one that is written in scientific language that I waded through a year or so ago. I may get bored in all this rainy weather and read it again. In a way, it is nice to know a lot of the chemical basis for dahlia color. But we we really need more info on the genetics of color. We want to know what to breed together to get the desired color. Why something is a color is one thing but how to breed that color into you flower is another thing altogether.

Krista

Teddahlia Mama and Papa contribute an equal share of the genes.

Are there variables other than the ability to produce seed at all that weigh into which varieties you choose to provide the pollen and which you choose to develop the seed?

Teddahlia

If you know a variety makes no seeds but that it makes pollen(some make no pollen either), you can encourage a bee to use that pollen on your seed maker variety. Bees are like taxi drivers and you just tell them where to go. 😘 Mike Iler mixed non seed makers with his seed makers in his isolation beds. His iso bed was over 100 feet away from his main garden if my memory serves me right.

Teddahlia

The essence of breeding is controlling the genetics of the seedlings. In non scientific words, you are trying to preserve your good traits and add some new good traits or delete some negative traits in the seedlings. It can be that your seed parent is nearly perfect but all you want is some different colors. So, you identify a pollen parent that will have some nice color and has enough good form to not go too far backwards and then let the games begin. Breeding dahlias means growing lots of seedlings.
Nice color but form poor.

Cosey

Does anyone know the history of how/who created the ADS color charts? Or how/if/when it's updated? Is there a color standard it follows?

MissyWeitzel

Cosey yes it was adopted by the ADS from a dahlia grower's charts and I just read about it in an ADS book I have and I'll look it up tonight and post here.

MissyWeitzel

From the ADS Publication The American Dahlia Society the second 50 years, which basically takes little snippets from each year's ADS bulletins and lists them by year. In 1968 it says it is adopted from DahliaDel's color chart.

I seem to remember it was mentioned again later, I'll follow up with anything I find.

MissyWeitzel

Ok, here's the rest of the story about the ADS color chart, still from the same book.
From 1979

From 1984

From 1987

From 2001

From 2002

From 2003

Teddahlia

I became a judge before they had an ADS color chart. Judges were required to use the RHS Colour Chart that is the world wide standard for flower colors and numerous other things. It was first published in 1966. When I used it , it had about 800 pages and now is up to 920. It cost about $120- in those days and I believe it is up to over $200- now. The accuracy of the chart is excellent . The ease of use is terrible.

In about the late 90s, a committee of dahlia judges was tasked with putting together a dahlia specific color chart. The result was the ADS Chart that the ADS sells. I would like to say that the ADS chart is a good product but I have disliked it from day one. Committees often cannot agree on much and I would venture to say that this committee could not have agreed on much or if they did they are color blind.

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