JG,

Yes, that Rich Farm Garden offering is called Zig Zag. It seems to be better than the single and semi-double Whirligig strain offered by Parks and the Carrousel strain offered by Johnny's. Stoke's paper catalog picture of their Whirligigs shows a nice doubleness comparable to the Zig Zag pictures, but their website has no picture. Burpee seems to have dropped this type of zinnia from their online catalog.

I raised some Zig Zags from Vesey's last year and one of them achieved "breeder" status. I'll be raising more Zig Zags this year.

MM

JG,

We discussed tricot zinnias back in March. I have had more tricot seedlings appear this year than usual. For many of them, it doesn't come to anything and the main stem develops normally, with true leaves appearing in pairs. However, this year I have had a few in which the true leaves appeared on the main stem in threes as well. This is one example under my fluorescent lights right now. It gets "breeder" status despite a rather "ordinary" flower. I plan to inter-cross all of my "threezies" in an attempt to get a strain.

MM

{{gwi:3080}}

Hi all,

I continue to be encouraged by the results of my "scabi" crosses. This is another one that gets "breeder status" by virtue of its ruffled petals.

MM

{{gwi:3083}}

JG,

We discussed the merits of coloring on the reverse sides of the petals a few messages back. This current specimen shows quite a bit of petal "backside", and "gets away with it" because the reverse side harmonizes rather well with the light lemony color of the topside.

MM

{{gwi:3086}}

MM,

You keep coming up with some very pretty and unique-looking zinnias! The yellow flower is so nice. The mix of white and yellow makes it look so bright, definitely lemon shades, with some meringue mixed in ;-).. The tricot look could be an interesting feature. I'm surprised when you say the flowers of the tricots look normal. I can't help but wonder if you looked at them very carefully, you might see some differences.

Well, we've had 70+ degree weather in Indiana. I've plowed up my main garden. It's so warm, I'm tempted to put in some zinnia seeds beginning of May. Spring is definitely here, finally!

JG

JG,

It is warming up here too, but since our "safe" no-frost date is the last of May, I think I will delay any significant amount of in-ground planting. I have transplanted a few "reject" zinnias outside to see what happens to them.

I'm pleased with the success of my Winter zinnia breeding project. Several specimens have been good enough to earn "breeder status" for subsequent crossing and selfing. A recent bicolor with white at the base of the petals pleased me, because that was one of my objectives. I think it has a lot of possibilities in further crosses. I am also selfing it, because I don't have any "help" from the bees inside. I continue to think there are a lot of surprises hidden in the zinnia DNA just waiting to be coaxed out.

I'm not sure it is a good thing being able to work late on my zinnias, but I am pretty much surrounded by them here in my "office/study", and sometimes I stay up later than I should to work on them.

MM

{{gwi:3089}}

Things aren't going so good here. I thought I had a good plan back in January; genealogy software for the records, iron-on transfers for the plant labels, and Pipe Pots for larger transplants. Never did it cross my mind that I would have trouble getting my saved seed to germinate.

The plant label trial has gone well. Here is a photo of the one that has been outside for over three months. It's a little ragged from the wind but there is no sign of fading.

{{gwi:3092}}

The Pipe Pot trials have gone better than I could have imagined and stand to be the most significant new thing for my garden this year ( see the Pipe Pot thread).

I set out to get some zinnias started 3 weeks ago. I knew I had a problem real quick, about 5% germination of the seeds saved from last year. Remember that I was stupid and saved all my seed in a single container. I then did the paper towel trick and got the same results. Hoping that the seed only had a surface pathogen that was killing the plants, I used a fungicide drench and tried again. No luck.

I don't guess it's a great tragedy since the seed was not selected from any particularly good plant. But to go forward with a serious breeding project I need to be assured that I can be successful with the seed.

The heads were collected after they were mature and brown during the dry weather of late August. The seed was separated and allowed to dry inside for another week before being stored.

I don't think of zinnia seed as one that is difficult and I've had good luck in the past. Perhaps I should be taking some additional precautions for a breeding program. Are there some secrets I don't know?

Pls8xx,

"Are there some secrets I don't know?"

Yes, and there are many secrets about breeding zinnias that I don't know yet either. It's an ever-learning experience.

The low germination of your saved seeds doesn't reflect on you. Commercial seed companies have special equipment to remove "light" seeds and sometimes they winnow the seeds, test the germination and, if it is below 80%, re-winnow the seeds with a more aggressive setting. And they may blend a high germination batch with a lower germination batch to upgrade the lower batch to a mix that exceeds the 80% figure that is usually considered a target for commercial seeds.

I started off the 2007 season with a planting of 40 4¼" pots (made from the bottom part of 2-liter soft drink bottles), one seed per pot. I got a grand total of one plant from that. A very inauspicious start. I checked my seeds and, indeed, many of them just looked liked zinnia seeds, but were in fact just empty husks. I learned that you have to "pinch" a zinnia seed to verify that it contains a mature embryo. You don't need to pinch it so hard as to crush it. Also, gently try to bend the seed. An empty husk will bend easily, but a mature embryo won't bend. That technique takes a little practice, because you can break an embryo with too much force. And you can sort of heft it and drop it on a sheet of paper to verify that it has an appreciable mass. And even those precautions only verify that there is a mature embryo in the seed, but they don't tell you whether the embryo is alive or not.

If seeds have been water damaged in the garden while still in the seed head, you frequently will see roots that have emerged from the seeds. I've never had one of those germinate.

If you are concerned about seed-borne fungi, bacteria, viruses, nematodes, or whatever, you can treat the seeds. Seed companies use something like Thiram for that, but I have used a 5-minute "swim" in 3% hydrogen peroxide or diluted (1½ tsp/gal) Physan 20. I haven't had trouble with my untreated seeds, so I now skip the seed treatment.

When I have a breeder that I want to get a good seed yield from, I hand pollinate it, either with its own pollen (as with the bicolor above) or with pollen from a chosen breeder donor. If the pollen takes, the stigma will wither and die in a day or two. If it doesn't, the stigma will remain yellow and alive for a week or two and will remain receptive and "open" for many days until it gets successfully re-pollinated. Zinnia pollen dies within 24 hours (which, unfortunately, prevents us from exchanging zinnia pollen by mail), so the pollen needs to be same-day pollen for good success.

Seed companies grow their zinnias in fields with very busy and numerous bee activity, so pollination approaches 100% for them. A home garden has less thorough bee pollination, so better germination can be obtained by hand pollination, even when it is selfing. Since I prefer to do my own pollination, I frequently use mesh bags to protect the pollen of my breeders from the bees.

Even with the precautions I take, my home-saved seeds probably don't average much more than 50% germination. Occasionally I will get over 90%, but that is still unusual.

I would suggest planting your seed extra thick, if in a tray of starting mix, or several seeds per pot, if in pots. I have discontinued using the soda pop pots for initial sowing and I now use little 2½" square plastic pots, because I get 32 of them per 11 x 22 tray versus 10 per tray for the soda pop pots. And it takes very much less growing mix for the little pots. For the 2½ pots that germinate seedlings, I repot them (eventually) into the soda pop pots. The soda pop pots tend to tip over with tall zinnias, so I plan to purchase some 5-inch commercial square pots to "phase out" the soda pop pots. I will still use them for rooting large cuttings, because they are transparent and you can monitor the extent of the root growth.

To get started with your zinnia project you could use some good commercial zinnia seed, chosen to support your breeding objectives. Don't hesitate to use F1 hybrid zinnia seed if you like to use them. You'll probably soon be crossing chosen F1 hybrids with other chosen F1 hybrids anyway. And a fraction of commercial field-grown zinnia seeds are actually F1 hybrids pollinated by bees.

Your pipe pots and tools are very clever. I wonder if that idea might even be patentable. Your iron-on transfer plant label looks very legible and plant-friendly. I am still on the lookout for a "zinnia-leaf-green" plant label material. There is a Velcro material that I might use, but it isn't so easy to write on. I think I saw a non-woven fabric craft material somewhere that might fill the bill.

MM

Hi all,

The scabiosa flowered zinnia genes continue to display various novel expressions of themselves, such as this rather odd specimen that just came into bloom. The guard petals are spaced widely apart, almost like the teeth on a gear.

MM

{{gwi:3095}}

Hi all,

This is a different expression of the scabiosa flowered genes, in which the central florets appear as modified petals. This is the first time I have seen this variant, and I am using it as a breeder.

MM

{{gwi:3099}}

This is another view of the same zinnia, under different lighting and surroundings.

MM

{{gwi:3102}}

Hello MM,

I especially like the white-centered red flower and the bright red scabiosa zinnia with the longer petals in the center! You are getting some very interesting variations! Every time I see your flowers, I think of building a small greenhouse when I retire. Well, two fairly good sized gardens are plowed up here, at least. If it is dry this weekend, I am going to sow some seeds outdoors.

I have some cherry and ivory swizzles that have just germinated indoors.

Pls8xx, do try some seeds from Park Seed! You will be amazed at the speed with which they germinate!

With respect to your germination problems, I can't help but wonder if you might be running into some trouble in getting viable seeds because some of your zinnias were polyploids, and some weren't. This might add up to low fertilization and seed-setting. I've never really taken the trouble to observe this--for example, in looking at the number of offspring from a cultivar like 'State Fair,' which is a tetraploid, I think....I don't know how well it would self, and also, how it would cross with the diploid cultivars.

JG

Thanks for the tips guys.

I concluded the winnowing process by scattering the seed a few at a time on a paper plate. Using a motion like that of panning for gold I separated the heavier seed from the fluff. I then used a finger tip to rake the seed to be saved off the plate. As MM mentions, good seed has a hard plump feel compared to bad seed and I think the ones I kept should have had a good rate of germination. The seed still looks and feels good.

This led me to consider the genetics problem that JG mentions. The plants were Burpeenas in one location, giant cactus in another, and a few Dashers in another. I can't see a problem here, though there have been no honey bees here for several years, so pollination might be a problem.

MM's observation of germination while still in the seed head may be a more likely cause of my problem. As I said, I collected the seed after the blooms had completely browned in a generally dry August. But there were a couple of rains. Most of the seed was collected from the plants' center "first bloom". Now that I think about it these blooms tend to stay upright on the plant and the upward angle of petals may have caused rain to settle around the seed. If the seed broke dormancy and then immediately dried out I might have seed that looks good but with a dead embryo.

Maybe I should collect the seed sooner. It might also be helpful to kink the stem over before the seeds mature so that the bloom does not hold extra moisture.

In gardening, I have learned more from my failures than I have from my successes.

Pls8xx,

There are places in California that are ideal for zinnia seed production, because a dry season coincides with the seed ripening phase.

It rains frequently here in this part of Maine, during the Spring, Summer, and Fall. I think that is generally true for most of the state, with the possible exception of some of the mountainous areas. It feels like a sort of cool rain forest here, and the majority of this property is wooded, as is 90 percent of the surrounding area. Mushrooms and fungi thrive in these cool moist conditions. This climate is about as near to the opposite of good zinnia seed growing conditions as you can get.

For that reason I watch my breeder seed heads and, as soon as the bottom rows and middle rows of seeds swell with big embryos, I pick the head and bring it in to dry. I don't try to get anything from the top third of petal rows. The head is far from dead at that stage, and the petals are still alive and with color, albeit somewhat "faded". Because the seed jackets are still alive at this point, they are waterproof and, even if the seedhead is soaked with rain, the embryos are protected from premature germination. Occasionally I will "miss" a seedhead, let it go brown, and I get a lot of premature germination in the seedhead. When I am "shucking" a seedhead, it is dry and cured and if I see tiny dried roots protruding from the sharp end of the seeds, I know that I goofed and lost that seedhead.

I also take advantage of the fact that green seeds have well developed embryos by individually harvesting "green seeds" in late Spring or early Summer to get an early start on a second generation. That can trim nearly a month off of the normal wait time for second generation seedlings. Sometimes, since the green seeds have a live seed coat, I use an X-Acto blade to trim off a little of the seed coat to expose at least a little of the embryo so that it can germinate before the live seed coat has to die in the soil to become pervious to water. I have even had success removing the embryo altogether and germinating the naked embryos indoors under lights in a sterile medium. However, the naked embryos don't seem to speed up the process any more than just exposing a little of the embryo through the live seed coat.

"This led me to consider the genetics problem that JG mentions. The plants were Burpeeanas in one location, giant cactus in another, and a few Dashers in another. I can't see a problem here..."

Me either. None of those are tetraploids, so you probably don't have any "accidental" triploid seeds. Triploid seeds almost never germinate because triploid embryos don't even develop to a mature state. Seedless watermelons are triploids, as are bananas.

"...though there have been no honey bees here for several years, so pollination might be a problem."

If you don't see bees "working" your zinnia patch, you can bet that natural pollination is a problem. Gravity dropping the pollen dumped by the disk florets onto stigmas below won't give you more than a 5 or 10 percent seed set, although the pollen bearing florets may set a naturally selfed seed of their own.

Honey bees, bumble bees, and carpenter bees are very numerous here and actually are a nuisance for me because I have to bag my pollen donors to keep the bees from "stealing" my breeder pollen. This year, I am probably going to bag some of my choicer female flower heads to prevent the bees from accidentally pollinating them. Even though a zinnia flower doesn't happen to have any pollen florets, a bee will frequently land on it and spend a few seconds looking for pollen before flying off. During that time some pollen can drop off of the bee onto stigmas of the female breeder. Apparently bees don't rely on their eyes to see the pollen florets before landing on the flower.

With no bees, you probably are going to have to do your own pollination to get a good seed yield. We have an annoying abundance of bees here.

Some well chosen commercial seeds can get you started this year. But you had just as well plant all of your saved seeds in case any of them do germinate.

"In gardening, I have learned more from my failures than I have from my successes."

That is a very wise observation. It has certainly been true for me.

MM

Hi all,

The second zinnia shown in this thread, the rose pink one marbled with white, was the mother of several of my recent blooms, including the rose-based-white specimen above on Wed, May 7, 08 at 4:44 and this scabiosa-based hybrid, in which the rose and white influence can be seen in the guard petals.

MM

{{gwi:3105}}

This informal zinnia has an open irregular arrangement of its petals that I think has potential in future hybrids.

{{gwi:3108}}

Hi all,

This scabiosa flowered hybrid appeals to me because the guard petals are more like "regular" petals that smoothly transition into more floret-like petals. I have had that flower form a few times before, and hope to have lots more of them, in larger flower sizes.

MM

{{gwi:3112}}

Hi!

Another nice one, MM! Your office complete with all the different kinds of blooms must be a sight to behold!

The genetics of these crossings has to be unbelievably complex. I hope that once any of us get flowers that are just what we want, we can get them so that they are true-breeding (homozygous) for most of the multiple characters that we see. Trying to reproduce desirable flowers that require different alleles for each of the characters or traits that we want would make things very difficult.....
hybridization with predictable results can be tough! And then the parent plants that we use would have to be totally reliable (true-breeding) in terms of alleles passed on.

I got some zinnias seeds just lately from Rich Farm Garden Supply--Whirlygig. It looks like this group has been playing around with hybridization, too, as their Whirlygigs claim to be semi-cactus flowered. Should be interesting to see how the plants turn out. I have never had a a pack of Whirlygigs or Zigzags that gave rise to 100% bi-colored flowers. Has anyone reading this thread gotten all plants with flowers of several colors from a pack of Whirlygig or Zigzag seed? Also, what are Dasher zinnias like?

JG

JG,

"I hope that once any of us get flowers that are just what we want, we can get them so that they are true-breeding (homozygous) for most of the multiple characters that we see."

I have thought about that from the start, because I can't keep myself from crossing hybrids with hybrids. Making crosses between crosses over and over again leads to very complex ancestry. Commercial F1 hybrid production is essentially repeatable, but crossing and re-crossing, which is fun for hobbyists, involves a lot of randomness that isn't repeatable.

Most commercial F1 hybrid seeds are crosses between special proprietary inbred strains, but commercial tomato growers (and some hobbyists) do a process called "de-hybridization" in which they save seed from an F1, grow of lot of F2s, pick a few of those F2s that most resemble the F1 parent for their next seed crop. Occasionally they will make crosses between "the chosen few". With repeated large plant-outs and stringent re-selection, an F1 hybrid can eventually be converted to an equivalent open-pollinated variety. That takes several years and a lot of stringent re-selection.

My plan to stabilize a really "keeper" zinnia is a form of de-hybridization. I will grow a lot of selfed seed from it and select only those few that best resemble the "keeper" from the large number of highly variable offspring. I will self those and repeat that process of stringent re-selection from large grow-outs.

The key to this is to obtain a large number of seed initially from the "keeper" zinnia. I plan to use asexual propagation (cuttings) to produce quite few clones of the keeper. The clones will let me multiply the seed set, as if the chosen plant had hundreds of seedheads, instead of only the limited number of seedheads that a single zinnia plant produces.

"I have never had a a pack of Whirligigs or Zigzags that gave rise to 100% bi-colored flowers."

I have always found some off-type zinnias in a pack, but that doesn't surprise me. Field-grown zinnia seeds are bee-pollinated.

My original (2006) package of Whirligigs from Stokes Seeds was over 80% bicolored. Maybe more, counting those that had two slightly different shades of a color, like a dark red tipped with a somewhat lighter red. From a distance those don't appear to be bicolored, but up close you can see that technically they are. The Stokes Whirligigs had various amounts of cactus flowered influence, with about a quarter of them being truly cactus flowered. But nothing I would call "spider flowered".

For bicolors to be effective, they need a flower form that shows off the two colors. I have a red based purple zinnia right now that appears red at normal distances, because the petals are fairly closely packed and each row of petals conceals the purple bases of the row of petals beneath it. That's one reason why I prefer the more "open" flower forms.

Incidentally, my experience with commercial scabiosa flowered zinnias is that only 5 or 10 percent of them come true to type from the packet.

I hope to increase the size of my garden in the next year or two, so that I can grow a larger number of zinnias to give me a larger number of specimens to select from. That should help with upcoming de-hybridization projects.

I expect that a side benefit of a de-hybridization project (other than compost piles full of discarded zinnias) will be that some of the off-type rejects will be interesting new forms themselves, and candidates for further use in new breeding projects.

MM

Hi all,

One of my breeding objectives is "toothy petals" and this specimen qualifies as a breeder on that basis.

{{gwi:3115}}

The funny thing is that this came from that one-pound packet of Burpeeana zinnia seeds from Tanzania that I bought from Stokes Seeds. I don't have a lot of room to grow zinnias indoors, so I didn't plant very many seeds from that packet, but the red-based-purple modified dahlia flowered zinnia also came from that same packet. That makes me optimistic that I may grow some other good zinnias from that packet.

MM

MM,

Yes, I guess the trick is in maintaining the desired characteristics against a somewhat constant (possibly new)genetic background. It is a lot of fun to see what we can get through these crosses. I'm fascinated with the results you have been seeing!

Yesterday I planted about 400 feet of zinnias, and am not nearly halfway through! The pattern is, plow up on sunny days. Wait through the rainy days. On the next sunny day, replow and plant. It is a rainy day now, so I placed some Park 'Big Red' zinnias into an indoor flat for germination.
Outdoor planting always ends up in some loss of possible germinating plants for me, so the most expensive seeds are started indoors if possible. I don't have so many lights as you do, so I have to rotate my flats on a 12 hour basis.

JG

JG,

Rain is imminent here too, so I finished tilling the garden today while the soil isn't too wet.

I like the big disk florets on this hybrid, because they are significantly larger than regular scabiosa flowered zinnias. I also like the longer guard petals, which are almost like "regular" zinnia petals. The open informal form of the flower also pleases me. Eventually I hope to get really large disk florets, so that each floret is rather like a flower all by itself.

MM

{{gwi:3117}}

MM,

That red flower is interesting--both in form and color! The disc flowers are two-toned and that gives some nice contrast to the flower. I can see that there are scabiosa zinnias in the ancestry. What zinnia contributed the red color?

The seeds I planted back on the 13th are coming up outside. I always worry about those outside plants because of the wild swings we have in temperatures, and also sometimes the rain makes a little layer of hard-pan on the soil in the big garden that some small plants can't penetrate. I guess I just should rely on "survival of the fittest," and know that ultimately the plants (and their seeds) I have should be able to overcome such obstacles in the spring! It's been cool here for this time in spring--60's in the days and 40's in the nights.

By the way, I've seen that I, too, have gotten some tricot seedlings this past week.

JG

JG,

"What zinnia contributed the red color?"

It was most probably from a red Burpeeana or a red Burpee Hybrid. I have used pollen from a few red pollen-donor "breeder-class" large Burpee zinnias.

" I always worry about those outside plants because of the wild swings we have in temperatures, and also sometimes the rain makes a little layer of hard-pan on the soil in the big garden that some small plants can't penetrate."

I also worry about those things. My soil is fairly sandy, so hard pan isn't so much of a problem.

"I guess I just should rely on "survival of the fittest," and know that ultimately the plants (and their seeds) I have should be able to overcome such obstacles in the spring!"

My thoughts exactly.

"It's been cool here for this time in spring--60's in the days and 40's in the nights."

It has been that way here, too. Although that isn't considered to be a cool Spring here. It has been warm enough for black flies. I hate black flies. They force me to wear a head net and spray repellent all over. If you don't have black flies, count yourself lucky. I haven't planted any seeds in-ground yet, although I guess I should do that as an experiment. I guess I could think of it as "late" Winter Sowing.

"By the way, I've seen that I, too, have gotten some tricot seedlings this past week."

I hope at least some of them will continue to bear their main-stem leaves and branches in threes. I think plan-of-three plants could lead to better plant forms for zinnias.

MM

Hello!

This is another big gardening day for me. Besides clearing out the iris patch so that the pretty flowers aren't obscured by grass, I am busy putting in the rest of my zinnia seeds and planting the seedlings that I have been hardening off the last few days. There are cleared out spaces in the perennial aress where some zinnias will go, as well as some newly made patches. I have found that shims from Lowe's make nice row markers. I snap off the narrow end if necessary, and after writing on each with back Sharpie, pound it into the ground with a hammer. They're cheap--about 30 for under $3.00. Once you get rid of the weak end, they are stronger than the usual long wooden markers made for gardens.

JG

JG,

I have used the wooden shims from Home Depot for a couple of years now, and they work great. The only downside is that my soil "eats" the bottoms off of them so that I usually get only one season of use. But they are eco-friendly and the "eaten" ones go into a compost pile where the digestion process goes to completion.

I have been transplanting blooming zinnias into my garden for several days now, and will continue that today. Bumble bees are busily pollinating them. I also have been doing pollination of selected specimens here in my little office/laboratory/study/growing room. A scabiosa hybrid bloom is actually in front of my little computer tower right now. I kind of like the symbolic intimacy of the zinnia with the computer.

There are two 2'x4'x6' chrome wire plant stands on rollers in this little room. Chrome wire shelves make a very efficient use of my very limited floor space. My chrome-wire computer stand occupies the south-east corner of the room, and fits very efficiently into the corner with pentagonal-shaped chrome-wire shelves. It has a chrome-wire slide-out keyboard shelf. With all the fluorescent lights, the light is very good in here. No Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) for me.

Some people would say that this room is seriously crowded, but I like to think of it as cozy and efficient. My Mother used to say, "Necessity is the mother of invention." and, like many other things, she was right about that too.

Have a good Memorial Day. More later,

MM

Hi All,

I have been planting some "green seeds" from some of the hybrids that I planted earlier this year under fluorescent lights and hand hybridized here next to my computer. Here is a magnified photo of a sample of the green seeds:

{{gwi:3120}}

Sometimes, to speed up the germination, I perform minor surgery on the green seeds, using an X-Acto knife, to expose the embryo a bit. Using green seeds speeds up the bloom-to-bloom time by several weeks.

MM

MM,

Your office lab sounds like a retreat of sorts, maybe even better described as a workshop. You have been getting some great results in there! It's interesting how you rush the growth cycle through use of green seeds. I often harvest seeds when green, but dry them down to store over the winter. It's crossed my mind more than once that this practice may be setting up future generations for vivipary, but I've yet to see it in my plants!

Somehow I can't get quite as excited about indoor gardening as I can outdoor gardening. My main garden I consider as my "kingdom"--sounds funny, but to me, there is nothing more satisfying than going out there and seeing all the diversity of plant life in that plot! And, of course, the small animals and insects and spiders that visit make it fascinating too. As I've been clearing various areas of weeds, I've already run into some recently vacated rabbits' nests.

Anyway, with perfect weather, I am hoping this is the final sowing day. Big Reds and Swizzles have been transplanted, will transplant some Whirlygigs today, and then sow some of the smaller varieties that I had hoped to start indoors--the Profusions, Peruvians, etc.

JG

JG,

"I often harvest seeds when green, but dry them down to store over the winter. It's crossed my mind more than once that this practice may be setting up future generations for vivipary, but I've yet to see it in my plants!"

OK, I have to admit that I don't know what 'vivipary' is, so I would be interested in a more detailed explanation of that.

A few of my scabiosa hybrids are showing traits from Whirligig parents. This is one recent bloom.

{{gwi:3122}}

Now, if I could just get some pink color on the tips of those petals, I would have pink-on-white-on-pink, which would give a kind of white halo effect. Maybe I should cross this one with one of the pink-based-white specimens to see what I get.

MM

MM,

It would be interesting if you could get the "halo" effect on your flowers. I don't know if I have ever seen any zinnias with a distinct red or pink layer of color on the tips of the petals, when other colors were present. The closest I believe I have ever gotten is on a flower I pictured earlier:

{{gwi:791}}

There, I had a magenta center, then a red layer, then a very small band of yellow. The below was also close, although not such a great photo:

{{gwi:3126}}

Vivipary is when the seeds while still in the flower, or on the stem of the flower, germinate. This happens under humid, moist conditions and I think pls8xx mentioned something like this earlier. An example around here that is very undesirable is to see corn with kernels sprouting while still on the stalk. It can happen to any plant with a particular genetic background, and is something to select against.

JG

JG,

"Vivipary is when the seeds while still in the flower, or on the stem of the flower, germinate. This happens under humid, moist conditions and I think pls8xx mentioned something like this earlier."

Omigosh! Maybe it was me. Back in my Fort Worth days I used to pull petals from the flowers and drop them into little opened furrows and some of them would be up the next day. I attributed the fast germination to the Texas heat. But I also noticed extensive pre-germination in some of my mature seedheads that I saved in the Fall. I attributed that to a wet Fall. I may very well have developed viviparous zinnia strains. Which alerts me to the danger that I might repeat that problem if I continue to use green seeds.

I think I will press on though. The time savings of planting green seeds are tempting. And your technique of gathering the seedheads a bit green and drying them inside is at least a way of successfully culturing viviparous strains. And it has the advantage of being a defense against ordinary water damage from a wet climate.

Incidentally, your second picture above has apparently been "moved or deleted." If you still see it, it may still be in your Temporary Internet cache. The first tricolor does come very close to a halo effect.

MM

MM,

The only thing about vivipary is that if you want lots of seeds, and want to store them, these quickly germinating strains will start in the garden from the flower possibly before you are ready to use their seeds. And what if you develop a really nice strain that you might want to sell to a seed company or on your own because you know lots of people might want to buy them? You have some particularly pretty flowers.

Almost all my seeds sown before May 29 have germinated because now we have warm and wet weather. Slow to come with little germination are the Ruffles from Jung and the Giant Cactus from Thompson and Morgan. We'll see about those!

Usually I have all kinds of potted flowers on my patio--annuals I buy from a nursery. I think I will thin my short zinnias when they come up and transplant some to the pots on the patio. By mid-July, it should look nice. I have to also cultivate patience here!

JG

JG,

I am certainly glad you raised the issue of vivipary, because it is a hazard that I needed to know about. In hindsight, I think that I probably had several strains of viviparous (if that is a word) zinnias in my Fort Worth garden, because for years I had been following the practice of planting green seeds in order to get quick turnaround. My goal in Fort Worth's long growing season was to get three generations a year out in the garden, and with green seeding I was able to achieve that.

Our growing season here in Maine is months too short to make three generations outside possible (unless I discover some technique for speeding up the growth of zinnias significantly). However, by using cuttings from my Fall crop last year, I got three generations in 2007. And now in 2008, by starting some zinnias inside under fluorescent lights in March, the possibility of four generations this year exists, particularly if I am able to bring my little lean-to greenhouse into use by this Fall. Seedlings from crosses that I made with this year's early generation are now emerging, much to my delight.

Yes, they were green seeds, with their seed-coats opened up a little with an X-Acto knife. Apparently that technique will work with "any zinnia" so I am hoping that this practice will not lead to viviparous strains. The Fort Worth experience was entirely different because many, perhaps most, of the green seeds that I pulled from flower heads actually had the tip of the emerging root showing. That is definitely not the case with my current practice. Even "regular" zinnia seedheads will pre-germinate in the garden in a warm rainy spell. That is why I follow your practice of gathering the seedheads before the petals have completely died and bring them in to dry.

Many green seeds will take two or three weeks to germinate because apparently the living seed coat is waterproof and it must take time to die and partially decay to become permeable to water so that the embryo can get a signal to grow. My techniques with the X-Acto knife apparently solve that delay by making the seed coat instantly permeable. I say that, because I have seedlings from green seeds growing now that emerged in only five days. That is only two or three days slower than with seed packet seeds.

Anyway, I am very pleased and encouraged that I am nearly one full generation ahead of where I was last year at this time. But, thanks to you, I will keep a watchful eye out for the signs of vivipary.

MM

Hello!

Temperature-wise, here in central Indiana, it is great for the zinnias. We have had daytime temperatures at 80 to 90 degrees. But, rainwise, it is terrible! In the last week, we have already had about 8 inches of rain, and I'm sure we've already picked up 3-4 inches more today and it still pours. There is flooding everywhere. I've lost my special yellow zinnias from Park due to flooding and it looks like some of my Benarys will be lost, too. I'm thinking to ask my husband to quickly build an ark and we, along with our animals and two zinnia plants, will do our best to survive.

JG

JG,

Sorry to hear about your flooding problems. We have had rain showers off and on for the last several days, but the total accumulation hasn't been a lot and we have no flooding problems. Mosquitoes have been bad, though.

Would raised beds be a solution to your flooding, or is it worse than that?

MM

MM,

My main garden was in about 3 inches of water for several hours yasterday, but the zinnias there were able to peek above the water as they are getting taller, and that at least is good. They seem to be alright today, and that water is gone. And, I have several raised gardens within that garden that I have converted for small zinnias. But, I had a newer patch near our field, that I've never seen flooded, and most of it was submerged for 24 hours several days ago by about 5 inches of water, and today, about half of it is still under water. I think I will lose about 3/4 of my Benarys, and all my green zinnias, the Ruffles, and some special yellow zinnias from Park. I will hastily reorder a few packs of seeds and place some of these somewhere else.

Yesterday was a record-setter for rain in Indiana, with whole communities under water. Since we are not near a river or dam we were OK in that we had no damage to the house. But, with flat land, there is nowhere for the water to go so it sits until absorbed by the soil!
Tornados have also come very close in the past week as well. And, of course, we had our earthquake about two months ago! I think we've had our share of natural disasters!

JG

Hi!

Despite the huge amount of rain and associated damage we have received, the majority of zinnias here have survived and are thriving. The Big Reds, I think, will live up to their name. They are already 7-8 inches tall! I would show a picture here, but the weeds are thriving, too. It is going to be a major effort to clear the garden and other patches of weeds with the mosquitoes, mud, and high temperatures and humidity.

All plants in the last weeks have shown more flowers than ever. The black locusts had so many blooms, they appeared entirely white; our Japanese lilac has the largest and most flowers ever. Right now, columbines, roses, coreopsis, astilbe, campanula, the first of the daylilies, and wild geraniums are at their best.

I received my new seeds and will probably sow some this weekend, behind a row of daylilies. I suspect they will bloom several weeks after the last of the daylilies!

JG

JG,

Despite the floods, your outdoor activities are way ahead of mine. I have just a few zinnias up that I planted out last Sunday (some of those in the one-pound bag from Tanzania). I can afford to expose them to cutworms.

I have been transplanting out my big zinnias that I started inside last March, and have some more of that to do. I have been crossing them here in my little "study", planting green seeds from the crosses, and some of those are far enough along to apply plant growth regulator to.

I could transplant them out, but last year about this time I had serious cutworm problems and I hesitate to expose these little hand-pollinated hybrids to such a fate. And, besides, I need to learn the techniques of plant growth regulation better. In April I was two weeks or more too late in applying the PGR to keep the plants low enough for culture on three-shelf plant stands. (I had to take a shelf out of three plant stands.) Several of my current seedlings are now at the stage when re-potting and PGR applications are probably in order.

The red zinnias whose picture I showed on Thu, May 8, 08 at 16:31 was designated breeder status and coded "B2" and it has produced a fairly good crop of green seeds, many of which are growing as seedlings now. I also plant to take some cuttings from it while the plant is still healthy.

My heart goes out to all the folks in the Midwest who have suffered losses from the recent floods.

More later. This is a very busy time indoors and outdoors for me.

MM

MM,

I'm amazed at how quickly you are getting your zinnia generations to move along. It will be interesting to see how the red zinnia's offspring look!

I'm glad we don't have the cutworms that you are seeing. As of yet, we have no insect pests, and I am hoping the strange weather we've had this year may play a role in reducing the number of Japanese beetles we have been seeing in the past years. Usually just as the zinnias begin to flower, the beetles start to chew at their leaves.

Below is how my main garden looks this morning. I've used my little Honda tiller (tills about 10" wide) to clean the spaces out between the rows, and I've started to weed the actual rows. The most prevalent weed is the Peruvian daisy (as described in my plant ID manual). Some sedge and grass try to invade, too.

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Included here are lots of cactus, scabiosa, tetraploid, and my mixed zinnias (from previous years).

Below is what a neighbor about a mile up our road has to deal with, as does almost every farmer in our immediate area. It has turned into " a land of 10000 recent lakes."
Please keep all the folks who have been affected by this disaster in your prayers.

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JG

JG,

I guess you are lucky your garden isn't a lake like that second picture.

This little zinnia shows influences from both Whirligig and Scabiosa parentage.

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I hope to have much better versions of Whirligig/Scabiosa combinations this summer.

MM

MM,

That last flower (scabious x whirlygig) is nice. There is a lot of white on the tips of the petals and the contrasting colors make it look quite bright. Can't wait to see the results of your other crosees!

I put in a row of Ruffles, Sun Gold, and Benary zinnias today--hope they can catch up with the others. I've noticed some already have flower buds!

JG

JG,

You should get some good plant habit genes from Ruffles and Sun Gold and the Benarys should contribute strong stems. I've noticed that some of my scabiosa flowered zinnias have rather thin stems and that some have strong thick stems, so that is something I will be watching for as a selection criterion.

Years ago I read in an art book that head mounted magnifiers were useful for painting fine details, so I finally decided to get a pair for my plant breeding activities. There are several brands and models available, but I decided to try the Bausch and Lomb Magna Visor based on user reviews of the product. I'm glad I did. I find the 12-inch lens to be very suitable for my plant breeding. I started using it for pollination, but now I find that it is also useful for finding good green seeds in the flower heads as well. I am now using my Magna Visor just about daily and, like one of the reviewers said, I wouldn't want to be without it and if something happened to mine I would immediately order another one.

With gas prices being what they are, I guess we will skip our annual trip to the Johnny's Selected Seeds home store. I had been delaying sending them an order in case we did go, but now I think I will send them an order, primarily to get some of their Oklahoma zinnia seeds. Their strain presumably has extra colors. I think Oklahoma might contribute some good plant habit genes. I don't like their flower form, but hopefully some hybridization with other flower forms can solve that.

MM

MM,

The visor you have really sounds like a good idea. I have a huge magnifying glass here at home, but your visor is great because you don't need to use a hand to manipulate it.
I may get one, too--thanks for the tip.

The zinnias here are starting to take off, but no flowers yet, just buds. So, I have started to look at the leaves for any unusual characteristics. Here are some plants I observed this morning, both having leaves in sets of three coming out from the stem. Both, however, did not have three cotyledons, only two. The first is a Jung's Oklahoma Mix zinnia; the second is Gift zinnia (orig. from Russia) from SSE.

{{gwi:3134}}{{gwi:3136}}

Below is an unusual set of leaves found in a Gurney's State Fair plant.
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Some of the plants look a little unhealthy after being exposed to flooding conditions, now dry, hot sunny conditions. Guess they will adapt, but some of the early leaves look pretty bad.

JG

JG,

Some of my 3-leaf specimens had 2 cotyledons and some of my 3-cotyledon specimens had 2-leaf pairs. A very few have both 3 cotyledons and leaves in threes. So far none of the seedlings from 3-leaf versions inherited the characteristic. Maybe it isn't genetic. But they keep appearing, so I will keep trying. I even had one specimen with "threesie" side branches. That is the first time I have seen that. It really whets my appetite to get a plan-of-three strain. I think the "threesie" plant habit could be really nice.

I have seen those odd cotyledons on State Fairs before. I think it may have something to do with their tetraploidy.

I've put my tetraploid/triploid/hexaploid experiments on the back burner for a while. The tetraploids that I grew in 2006 had a petal form that was sort of spoon-shaped that I didn't like. I don't like the idea of producing sterile triploids, and doubling their chromosome number to hexaploids might be just too many chromosomes for good plant characteristics. Some of the tetraploid characteristics seem a little undesirable to me. For the time being I will stick with diploids.

MM

MM,

I have planted a number of tetraploids this year, but will be crossing some of them among themselves, and see what I get. I've purchased these from several different sources.

We've had a lot of heat and rain lately, so yesterday, I replanted one part of a patch that was flooded earlier(I don't think we will have another big flood like we had in the past weeks).

{{gwi:3140}}

Buds are starting to open here. I think in the next two weeks, I will see the first of the flowers. My major concern now is that any plants I would like to cross are ready at the same time! I guess it is a good thing each plant has a fairly long flowering season. I see that bugs are also starting to put holes in some of the leaves. I haven't caught them doing it, it's just "a here and there" sort of thing. I was going to put some flowers in the county fair, but wanting to forego the insecticide because of the bees, I think I will not do that this year.

JG

MM,

Finally! My first outdoor zinnia of 2008 has arrived. He's a little skimpy, and I bet a descendent of Zowie, but none-the-less, a bright spot in the garden.

{{gwi:3142}}

I wonder if we should start Part 5?

JG

JG,

Wow! I see yellow, orange, scarlet, red, and rose-purple in that one. That's at least five colors in one zinnia. Since it is "throwing pollen" already, it probably is a child of Zowie.

A agree that we should start a new thread. I'll set it up tomorrow.

MM

Jackier, It looks like you're off to a great start. I like seeing so many colors in one bloom.

I've been following all four parts and finally decided that I need to log in and ask some questions.

Using what I've "learned" here, I cross pollinated zinnias for the first time today. We'll see. I used pollen from a purple dahlia type on a red/ivory swizzle and then on a red/yellow.

My question: Last year I grew dahlia flowered zinnias in purple and yellow. Each packet was true to color for the percentage that I planted. I let the bees pollinate them. I did not seperate the seed from the two colors. Flowers from their saved seed began to bloom last week. No yellows have bloomed so far. (I had more purple blooms than yellow last year.) I have a number of purples and I also have pinks. Did these pinks come from the purple x yellow? or are they from the purple x purple?

Holtzclaw,

Welcome to the GardenWeb and to zinnia experimentation. It sounds like you are off to a good start. I intend to grow some Swizzles and cross various things with them, but haven't gotten around to that yet. I even have some un-planted Swizzle seed. I'll be planting them soon.

I still haven't "decoded" the principles of zinnia color mixing. I did get some surprises with a good purple cactus flowered specimen that I pollinated last year. It had essentially no pollen (possibly none at all) so it made a good "natural" female. I crossed several good zinnias onto it, mostly breeder-class cactus flowered zinnias, and got a good seed yield of F1 hybrids from it.

Since it was purple and I sort of expected purple to be pretty dominant, I expected mostly purple shades in the F1s. Instead I got colors like pink, yellow, and orange. The yellows and oranges probably did have some purple pigment in them, because the yellows were sort of an "old gold" and the orange was a sort of burnt orange. So far I haven't seen a purple bloom from that cross. I guess it is like they say on the TV reality shows -- expect the unexpected.

Incidentally, the real excitement starts when you grow the F2s. There you get an almost infinite number of recombinations of characteristics from the original parents.

"Did these pinks come from the purple x yellow? or are they from the purple x purple?"

Based on my limited experience, I think it is possible that the pinks came from the purple x yellow. I think it is less probable that they came from purple x purple, although that isn't impossible, because one or more of your purples may have been a hybrid itself.

I think it is likely that you will get some interesting things from your crosses this year. You might even get some interesting plant habits, intermediate between the low bushy form of Swizzle and the taller zinnias.

MM

Hi all,

Well, as we discussed above, we are continuing this over in a new message thread, It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 5. See you over there.

MM