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zen_man

It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 11

zen_man
14 years ago

Greetings all,

Once again, the previous part of this ongoing series, It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 10, is becoming rather long and slow to load, so we are continuing the series here.

The same guidelines apply here. Anything remotely related to zinnias is fine and, as a courtesy to readers with smaller monitors, try to keep the pictures posted no wider than 986 pixels.

This is a picture taken today of some of my current "third wave" hybrid zinnia seedlings.

{{gwi:11915}}

They are part of the third generation of zinnias since I started my indoor zinnias here in Kansas back in last December. Many of these "third waves" are due to be repotted, but some need to grow a bit more to get a more structurally sound root "ball". I referred to it as a root "ball", but it is more like a root "cube" in those square 2-inch pots. I am still doing some work in my outdoors zinnia garden, where it hit 100 in the shade today. But I have to admit that right now I prefer to garden in the comfort of our air conditioning.

ZM

Comments (100)

  • zen_man
    Original Author
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    JG,

    Your "Curligig" is actually quite a pretty flower, despite being single. You are getting some great variations in zinnias.

    I do like long, narrow petals and, in some flowers, I think the long thin petals give the flower an aster flowered look. That is somewhat the effect in this specimen:

    {{gwi:15767}}

    Once again, dappled sun affects this picture. The petals near the 4-o'clock position aren't really yellow; that is just the effect of a little sunbeam.

    I'm definitely going to experiment more with crosses between Haageana and Violacea. Thanks to your encouraging results and Arlan's interesting specimens, I think I will be planting a fall crop of Persian Carpets soon.

    By the time I got around to ordering the Queen Red Limes from Johnny's, they were out of stock. You might get some interesting hybrids using them.

    ZM

  • jackier_gardener
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    JG,

    Your orange flower has a nice look, both in color and form, and I like the way the chaffy scales are just hidden by the tiny central petals. Also, the slightly curled petals at the ends...

    Now I'm finding the Queen Red Lime plants also include individuals with green flowers.. The interesting thing is that the green flowers seem to be becoming white in the center as they mature:

    {{gwi:15769}}

    These possibly could give rise to offspring with darker-pigmented ends on petals.

    Speaking of that, today I found a really different flower among the offspring of last year's scabious and random-pollinated flowers. It doesn't have good form by a long shot, but the color scheme is something I've not yet seen here:

    {{gwi:15770}}

    I'm thinking, in view of Arlan's Fri, Jun 26, 09 15:56 post on the developing Persian Carpet color pattern, that the male parent of this flower may well be a Persian Carpet!
    Nonetheless, I'm anxious to see what the fellow flowers look like on this plant to see if expression of these colors is uniform in the plant.

    JG

  • zen_man
    Original Author
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    JG,

    Your green variant of Queen Red Lime does seem to have green petals with white bases. It has interesting possibilities for crossing with large white cactus flowered zinnias.

    Your red-based-lemon specimen is unique. There are lots of possible ways to use that in crosses.

    This picture is one of my current echinacea flowered specimens out in the garden.

    {{gwi:15771}}

    A lot of the scabiosas and scabiosa hybrids have the central florets pretty much the same color as the guard petals, but this one has strawberry florets and baby pink guard petals, and I really like it that it has two different colors. It's definitely a breeder for me, and I will give it special attention. I didn't notice the tiny ants in the florets until after I processed the picture.

    Yesterday we were narrowly missed by a dramatic microburst event only a few miles away down I35 in Ottawa Kansas. It had winds high enough to turn over 18-wheelers. Thunderstorms are predicted here for the next several days. That kind of worries me, since a lot of my breeders are outside and exposed to the elements. I got some more concrete re-mesh wire today to make some more zinnia cages, to give more of my zinnias protection from windy weather. I saw a strange weird looking dog wondering through my zinnia patch yesterday, and I was glad for the zinnia cages that were deployed.

    ZM

  • jackier_gardener
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    ZM,

    The two colors in the echinacacea-type zinnia is really attractive, especially the particular shades of red and pink
    you have there. You're right in that it's very seldom that you see different and coordinating colors in rays and florets. It will be interesting to see how those features translate to the offspring.

    By the way, besides ants, I see tiny webs on your flower. Someone in the garden may be thinking of making a meal of those ants!

    I saw a similar situation lately when a nymph form of an assassin bug stalked a Japanaese beetle (go bug!)

    {{gwi:15772}}

    Finally, the cactus zinnias have started to bloom here. This is one from HPSeeds:

    {{gwi:15773}}

    It's interesting how some of the scabious zinnias have little points at the tips of their petals.

    {{gwi:15774}}

    JG

  • zen_man
    Original Author
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    JG,

    I have also noticed the tiny webs on my zinnias, but haven't seen the spiders that leave them. Your first picture is a good capture of insect life. You are a natural naturalist. I am sure you are aware that, if you printed out your pictures, you could make a great scrapbook. And, who knows? Maybe a book. I have been thinking of making a scrapbook as a sort of garden journal with pictures. (But not a book.)

    Your yellow cactus flowered specimen looks like a good female breeder, that you could pollinate with some of your more unusual specimens.

    That white scabiosa with pointed guard petals is great. It has a good classic look. I'm not sure whether it is Grecian or Roman. It also makes me think that it might be worthwhile to select out stable strains of separate colors of the scabiosa flowered zinnias.

    This current recombinant has curved and twisted petals, like we have seen in several of our zinnias.

    {{gwi:15775}}

    It reminds me a bit of the now-extinct Fantasy Flowered zinnias, which actually won AAS medals in decades past. Their petals were very twisted and curved, and the flowerform was worthy of the name "Fantasy". It really irks me that the seed industry let the Fantasy zinnias go extinct. Oh, well, we now know that zinnias can do that and, if they can do it once, they can do it again.

    More later. I have a lot of potted indoor zinnias that need to be set out into the garden.

    ZM

  • jackier_gardener
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    ZM,

    I like the twisted and curved look on the gold zinnia! It kind of reminds me of the look that Medusa's "hair" had. Very pretty!

    I have some of the offspring now blooming from last year's
    cross of a male Envy with a female HP Seed Cactus (not a pretty flower, but close to blue!). I was hoping for blue-flowered offspring.

    {{gwi:15776}} X {{gwi:15777}}

    Most of the F1s are coming up with solid light magenta or pink flowers, but several were like this, picking up characteristics from both parents, but not blue ;-( :

    {{gwi:15778}}{{gwi:15779}}

    JG

  • zen_man
    Original Author
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    JG,

    You know, I had also wondered if crossing greens with lavenders, purples, or violets might be a way to get a light blue. The green seems to be recessive in your crosses. The F2s might be interesting. I'm not optimistic that getting a true blue in zinnias will come easy. But there are some light bluish lavenders that can look sky blue in the shade. I had one of those in my original scabiosa hybrids.

    I took this recombinant picture today in my zinnia patch.

    {{gwi:15780}}

    It meets several of my breeding objectives, by getting a bicolor in a larger informal flower form. But the scary thing about this zinnia is that it is on a side branch on a plant that I had originally decided to discard because the first flower was single. But it was pretty, so I set it out in my zinnia patch to act as a nectar source for butterflies. Then, when the side branch budded, I removed the the faded single main-stem flower. And then the side branch flower opened as fully double. I hope that none of the other nice singles that I discarded were going to go double in their side branches. This cautions me against being too quick to discard single recombinants in the future.

    Today was an enjoyable day in the garden, despite the humidity. I set out several potted zinnias into the garden, and pruned a couple of limbs that were shading my zinnia patch. This evening I lit a couple of Tiki torches to help discourage the mosquitoes. I'm looking forward to more zinnia gardening tomorrow.

    ZM

  • davemichigan
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I like the scabious zinnias. They seem to give lots of variation too. I did order some seeds this year, but now it is a little late, so I will wait until next year.

    But at least the zinnias of this big procrastinator is having flower buds now. :-)

    Speaking of bugs, this stupid beetle died on my zinnia like that. I didn't put it there. It really died there like that. Maybe it flipped over and could not flip back. I have seen that on the ground but not on a leaf.

    {{gwi:15784}}

    {{gwi:15787}}

  • zen_man
    Original Author
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Arlan,

    Glad to have you back off the road, and that you have survived the layoff and reorganization. These are tough times. We have been having nearly daily thunderstorms, with some nearby microbursts causing extensive wind damage. Winds from microbursts can get as high as 120 mph. A recent microburst in nearby Ottawa Kansas blew over 18-wheeler trucks on I35. Our power was off for several hours last night and the wind blew over a small table that I used for outdoor breaks from my garden activities. We had a little over an inch of rain last night, as measured in my tin-can rain gauge. My zinnias have been getting blown about quite a bit and I have been installing "zinnia cages" to hold them more upright and give them some protection from winds and loose dogs. This zinnia had been lying on its side before I propped it up with a zinnia cage, so it is still confused about which way is up.

    {{gwi:15791}}

    Its florets are a pretty good color match to its guard petals, but since its ancestry includes both scabiosa flowered zinnias and Burpeeana zinnias, its guard petals are extra long and a bit informal. They aren't down-sloped like a true Echinacea bloom, but I still classify it as echinacea flowered.

    I hope the toll of dry weather and thunderstorms wasn't too severe on your garden. I am thankful that I am retired and have more time to spend gardening, and that my "road trips" consist of an occasional visit to out-of-state relatives.

    ZM

  • zen_man
    Original Author
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Dave,

    That's an interesting picture of the dead Japanese Beetle. We had a lot of JBs in Maine, but here in Wellsville Kansas I haven't seen any yet. Knock on wood. It looks like your Japanese Beetle ate a few holes in your zinnia leaf and then rolled over dead. Actually, he may not have been dead. In Maine, I frequently found Japanese Beetles literally sleeping on my zinnias and, when sufficiently disturbed, they would wake up. Of course, your JB may have been truly dead. One possibility is that it died from a parasitic fly larva. When hand-picking Japanese Beetles, I was always careful to spare any beetles that had one or more white parasitic fly eggs on its back. This beetle has such an egg:

    {{gwi:15795}}

    There are a lot of pictures of Japanese Beetles on the Web. The beetle in {{gwi:15700}} was "plastered" with several parasite eggs, which is unusual. But I have found JBs with two or three eggs. By sparing the JBs with white eggs on them, they become nurseries for the production of more parasitic flies, which can help serve as a natural control for Japanese Beetles. Don't mistake the white spots on the abdomen of the JBs as eggs. They all have those white dots.

    I don't know when your killing frost dates are there in your part of Michigan, but here in Wellsville Kansas and using the Kansas Freeze/Frost Occurrence Data, (I am interpolating between Olathe to our northeast and Ottawa to our southwest) there is about a 50% chance of a freeze of 32°F by October 22. There is a 10% chance it could be as early as October 7, and only a 10% chance it would be as late as November 17th. The dates shift for a threshold temperature of 36°F or 28°F, but I think I can safely gather zinnia seeds after a 32-degree frost, so I estimate that my useful zinnia growing season can extend to October 7th with only a 10% risk factor. So I am still planting seeds for a Fall crop of zinnias.

    Your can figure your odds of freeze/frost by using the Michigan Freeze/Frost Occurrence Data. It is helpful to read the footnotes to the table. If your location isn't in the table, you can interpolate between two or more nearby locations. It takes a little while to figure out what the data means but, when you do, you can gamble on the weather with a good idea of what your odds are. I bring this up because there could still be a chance that you could plant a Fall crop of zinnias now without it being suicidal. Gardening is always a gamble, but it helps to know the odds.

    ZM

  • holtzclaw
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    This volunteer came up where I had 'Swizzles' last year. It is a dwarf, and since those were my only dwarfs in '08, I feel sure its mommy was either a yellow/red or ivory/red 'Swizzle'. I did my 'Swizzle' crosses with a 6 foot tall 'Violet Queen' that was fully double or with a single orange. From this single specimen I would venture that dwarf is dominant and that bicolor is not.

  • holtzclaw
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    This is from a 'Swizzle' female pollinated by a single orange of medium height. This orange was interesting because the petals' backsides turned purple after they were collected from the seedheads. From this specimen I would venture that dwarf is dominant. Single tends to be dominant, though this one wants to have a smaller second layer. Now I'm unsure about the dominance of bicolor.

  • jackier_gardener
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Good evening (or morning!),

    Last summer I selfed this flower because I liked the wavy petals:

    {{gwi:15799}}

    Most of the progeny don't have wavy petals, but most are shades of magenta or purple. I particularly like this one, although it is simple:

    {{gwi:15803}}

    The next flower below has also appeared in the garden. I've shown it here before, but it keeps getting prettier and prettier! I would like to find a way to get more! I don't think selfing it will do that, although that is probably what I'll do with this first flower, given it has some pollen.

    {{gwi:15805}}

    ZM, the gold flower with pink center is an interesting combination of colors. I'm convinced because of the variability during the zinnia's growth, that it is good to watch for the 2nd or third flowers before discarding the plant. It's funny. I've had events happen in both directions. Sometimes the first flower is the best the plant will ever put out, but sometimes it's the worst!

    The scabious flower with longer petals is pretty. You said earlier it would be nice to have a pure-breeding line of each color of scabious zinnia. I think you would have to be patient there. Many really nice lines never shed pollen!
    I wonder how many generations you would have to go through before getting all scabious offspring? Or do scabious zinnias require a particular cross to get hybrids and the scabious form?

    Arlan, it sounds like you have a mobile and busy position! Ever since you showed the color changing in your Persian Carpet zinnia, I've been looking for the same thing. I'm beginning to see some evidence of that, but not the color pattern you saw! I really liked the darker tips on the petals.

    Dave, you would be lucky to have some parasite around killing off beetles! Do you have many up there? We're getting a lot right now in Indiana. Already they've stripped some of my plants of their leaves.

    HC, those swizzle offspring you have may give us an idea behind the inheritance of the particular color patterns.
    I've also gotten two offspring from Swizzles similar to yours--one is a solid shade of purple and one is banded. I got these when crossed to the solid 'Big Red' zinnia from Park. Will show them when the flowers get a little larger.

    JG

  • zen_man
    Original Author
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    JG,

    "The next flower below has also appeared in the garden. I've shown it here before, but it keeps getting prettier and prettier! I would like to find a way to get more! I don't think selfing it will do that, although that is probably what I'll do with this first flower, given that it has some pollen."

    None of us are close to tissue culture yet, although that could be an ultimate solution. With what we know works today, you can take cuttings and then cuttings from those plants and so on, until you run out of season and need to go indoors or into a greenhouse. If going indoors or into a greenhouse is not an option, you could plan to harvest a lot of seedheads from your cloned population.

    I did a few experiments propagating zinnias by grafts, but that proved to be much less practical than cuttings. The grafts also needed the protection of a humidity dome and, since the "rootstock" plant was already somewhat large, the humidity dome for the graft/rootstock combination would have to be huge. Some sort of plastic bag just for the graft would be needed.

    I think cuttings are vastly more practical for zinnias than grafts, although it might be possible to find a way to make grafts more workable. The next step beyond cuttings is cuttings with progressively smaller explants. And then perhaps Photoautotrophic (Sugar-Free Medium) Micropropagation as a precursor to zinnia propagation by tissue culture.

    That last picture of your "fantasy" specimen is spectacular. You don't see a picture like that in a seed catalog or on a seed packet. You really have something there. It is definitely worthy of selfing and outcrossing. And, if you feel comfortable with the process, you could take a few cuttings and pinch those plants to make them bushy with a lot of seedheads.

    ZM

  • davemichigan
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    ZM, thanks for the Freeze/Frost Occurance data. My 10% chance for frost is the same as yours but the 90% chance is earlier. I guess I will throw in some scabiose and some Persian Carpet. Nothing much to loose even if I don't get their seeds.

    JG, I don't know if I have many beetles. I don't see them when I take a walk in the garden, but there are some zinnias and coneflowers with holes in the leaves. My lawn is treated for grubs, so I thought I would have not much problem with JB, but they are still there. They don't seem to be too destructive for the whole plant, so I just ignore them for now.

    I like your wavy flowers (the top one and the bottom one with multi color). The middle one is cute, and it is great that you have the record of the parent and offsprings.

    HC, it's interesting to see the bicolor of swizzle transfer to the offspring.

    Now I am so looking forward for my flowers and even next year. :-)

  • jackier_gardener
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Hello!

    ZM, I think cuttings are the way to go (for me) in propagating a favorite plant. Last year I briefly tried it, but didn't include the Physan 20 which I have now this year, and will use. Your description on starting cuttings (Part 6, July 28, 2008) was helpful. I've had experience with micropropagation with other kinds of plants at school. It is exciting, but a lot of care must be exercised in keeping everything sterile, and for now I'll try cuttings.

    Today we've had a 1/4 inch of rain, and after it stopped, I was amazed at how the showers accelerated all the growth in the gardens. The main garden has taken off (micro-garden lower left of main garden picture, left), and to the east of that are two smaller patches (right), that are starting to fill out as well:

    {{gwi:15809}}{{gwi:15811}}

    I have a number of July Bonnet offspring. It's interesting to note that the first five offspring that I had started indoors were from the largest of the seeds I collected, and those had the larger petals of typical zinnias. The smaller seeds were planted directly in the garden. There is a tremendous amount of similarity among those (~40) plants, making me think that the small seeds are related to the seemingly more mutated characteristics.

    {{gwi:15813}}{{gwi:15815}}{{gwi:15817}}{{gwi:15819}}{{gwi:15821}}

    Unfortunately, none have the curly little red petals in the center!

    Last year, I had a red flower (below, left) with rolled petals, and it was selfed. One of the F1s is shown below, right.

    {{gwi:15823}}{{gwi:15825}}

    About 1/2 of the offspring has rolled petals.

    One out of ten flowers has an intermediate-rolled appearance:

    {{gwi:15826}}

    All the flowers are either purple or red.

    The micro-garden is starting to bloom, too, and I am looking for any apparent hybrids. I see Chippendale seeds giving rise to flowers with Persian Carpet-like patterns, not surprising since they are both haageanas.

    It's possible I may have a plant that is hybrid between a Z. peruviana and a Z. tenuifolia (still haven't found the chromosome number of Z. tenuifolia!):

    {{gwi:15828}}

    Left to right, above: Z. tenuifolia (Red Spider); top and middle, Z. peruviana (Peruvian zinnia); and to right, possible hybrid?

    I've got lots and lots of Whirligigs or Whirligigs by another name (Carousel or ZigZag) now. I can see that the breeders are trying to make them fancier by crossing to all other kinds of zinnias. I see among the Whrligigs cactus-like flowers, and among them, I'm getting the largest zinnias I have ever seen (solid-colored, and 5 to 6 inches across!).

    JG

  • zen_man
    Original Author
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    JG,

    " I've had experience with micropropagation with other kinds of plants at school. It is exciting, but a lot of care must be exercised in keeping everything sterile, and for now I'll try cuttings."

    Plant Cell Technology makes a product called PPM (Plant Preservative Mixture) that is supposed to make it less difficult to maintain sterile conditions for tissue culture. I actually received a small sample of PPM from Dr Carol Stiff, but haven't used it yet. Dr. Stiff seems to be the proprietor of the Home Tissue Culture group as well as the parent organization, Kitchen Culture Education Technologies, Inc.

    I considered using PPM for my cuttings experiments, but there wasn't much of it in the sample and it is kind of expensive compared to Physan 20, so I went with the Physan 20 with good results. I may use the PPM in my experiments with photoautotrophic micropropagation of zinnias.

    It would be great if you accidentally got a Z. peruviana x Z. tenuifolia cross. I'll keep my eye open for a chromosome number for Tenuifolia.

    I particularly like the righthand picture of your July Bonnet offspring. I think I would save seed from all of them to see what pops up in the recombinations.

    You are getting a lot of interesting zinnia specimens. This year I think your zinnia garden is considerably bigger than mine. We are renting and this place isn't favorable for gardening because of space limitations, tree shading, and gummy black soil. But, still, dealing with the challenges is kind of fun.

    ZM

    (I am not associated with any product or vendor mentioned)

  • jackier_gardener
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    ZM,

    I went to a seminar in 2007, and received some items for home culture, but have just been saving them up for possible home use. Included: 35 mL PPM with 0.1350% (w/v) and 0.0412% (w/v) of the two active ingredients (which are forms of isothiazolone), along with some packets of MS basal medium and agar. I think they were representing some of the things that Carol sells in her kits, and were introductory promotions. MAYBE I will use them one day, so will certainly hang on. I don't see an expiration date on the PPM, nor any indication that it should be refrigerated.

    JG

  • zen_man
    Original Author
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Hi all,

    I took this picture in my outdoor zinnia patch today.

    {{gwi:15831}}

    I mentioned in a previous message, some time back, that I had had a side branch with the plan-of-three (3Z) leaf configuration. This picture is another occurrence of the same thing. The flower on the right is on a 3Z side branch. Now, if we could just put this together and get 3Z side branches on a 3Z main stem, we would really have something.

    ZM

  • davemichigan
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Looks like we have quite similar interest. :-) I have been reading on tissue culture (for a few years now) and am still on Dr. Carol's tissue culture mailing list; but for me, aside from personal interest in scientific thing, I don't see the big reason to do it yet. I don't have a need for 200 or 2000 plants, for example. Cuttings are sufficient for me to preserve the line to next year.

    JG, I am interested in your red color zinnias. You said most of them are purple and red. Are they the same purple and red or do they have different shades. What are the majority color? How many did you plant (roughly). I am wondering if we can observe some Mandellian genetics with single-colored zinnia.

    I have some reseeded candytufts, and they fits Mandel theory quite nicely. I think that is cool.

  • jackier_gardener
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    ZM,

    Both of those flowers are very nice! Are they both on the same plant (I assume they are)..? I only ask because the younger one with fewer central florets shows its pink center, while the other doesn't. You have a really pretty combination there....Funny how in this case, only the side branch is a 3Z. It might be an experiment sometime to try and disturb the terminal buds of a test plant to see if this condition could be induced by mechanical means...maybe not.

    Something else crossed my mind as I observed some of the scabious zinnias today, speaking of induction. I was looking at the one plant I had with particularly nice scabious and orange flowers. I've been netting its flowers in hopes of getting a scabious flower on another plant with pollen for crossing. I haven't, so unless there has been pollination by wind, none of those flowers have yet been pollinated. I notice now on the fifth and youngest flower coming on that plant, that it is finally producing disc pollen-producing florets. Possibly if a plant puts out multiple flowers and none get pollinated, the plant puts out a last-ditch signal to its younger flowers to finally produce pollen...just a hypothesis..akin to deadheading sort of.. I've always been in a hurry to cross-pollinate flowers that I like to ensure I maintain their genes in some way when they are not producing pollen themselves. Maybe I should wait to see if they will produce pollen in final blooms!

    Dave, I have a lot of red flowers of many shades, and some in combination with other colors. I might be wrong here, but I feel that if I just kept all of my seeds from year to year, ultimately most of the flowers would turn out purple.
    I did that once several years in a row, and it seems that from one year to the next, I got more and more purple flowers. According to one paper I saw in Journal of Heredity (79:289-293) published in 1988, the authors wrote that zinnia colors are controlled by multiple alleles, or genes. Purple flowers have dominant alleles for several traits. But it might be more than that. There may be some factors that are selective for flowers with particular alleles, like hardiness for particular conditions in the garden, preference for flowers with these alleles by pollinators, etc. And, often genes for the same trait have more complex relationships to each other than simply dominant to recessive! So we are most likely working with more than Mendelian patterns of inheritance. I think these zinnia genetics are going to be a challenge!

    The important thing is that if we want to study inheritance of color, we have to develop or acquire pure-breeding strains expressing each color. Then carry out the crosses. Check out that article I referenced above. It's a good head start on what we might want to test. At this point, I'm sure I have no pure-breeding strains, except possibly the Park's Pick (Benary) zinnias of different colors. ZM was referring earlier to developing pure-breeding strains of scabious zinnias to get a handle on our crosses and better control on our hybridizations. Good idea! But it will take some time to so.

    I apologize for getting long-winded here..interesting subject! Below are some pictures of what I have now: a full pink cactus with purple highlights, an "airier" orange-red cactus, an orange and pink flower (not so nice as ZM's scabious example), and another rolled-petals zinnia F1 (extreme example)..

    {{gwi:15834}}{{gwi:15836}}

    {{gwi:15837}}{{gwi:15839}}

    JG

  • zen_man
    Original Author
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    JG,

    I have noticed that scabiosa flowered zinnias will occasionally put out a side branch with a flower that has conventional fuzzy yellow pollen-bearing florets. But I had not conjectured that it was a response to a lack of pollination of its existing flowers. I continue to notice different appearances from one branch to another in zinnias, and that still makes me wonder if zinnia plants frequently have somewhat different genetics from one branch to another.

    Today I found a conventional yellow floret on the 3Z flower pictured above, and I used its pollen to self the petal stigmas on that flower. I saw that as an opportunity to continue my attempts to get a strain of threesie zinnias. There were also some fuzzy yellow pollen florets on another flower on the same scabiosa recombinant plant. That flower is out of the picture in the picture above, but you can see its stem going out of the top of the picture and you can see the now-faded main flower behind that stem. Incidentally, the other flowers on this plant also have bi-colored petals, but the central crests of florets have grown to hide the base color of the petals.

    I resisted the opportunity to use the pollen on that other flower, even though it was on the same plant, because it wasn't on a 3Z branch. It may be pointless for me to wonder if those two flowers were the same or different genetically, because that plant is so heterozygous that recombination affects every pollen grain and every egg cell on such a plant, regardless of which branch the flower is on.

    "I was looking at the one plant I had with particularly nice scabious and orange flowers. I've been netting its flowers in hopes of getting a scabious flower on another plant with pollen for crossing. I haven't, so unless there has been pollination by wind, none of those flowers have yet been pollinated."

    The scabiosa flower form is tricky, and you may have already had a lot of self pollination within your choice orange scabiosa specimen. The typical scabiosa floret is hermaphroditic, containing both anthers and stigma. The anthers do not always have viable pollen, in which case the stigma is just as available for pollination as the petal stigmas.

    Sometimes the anthers do have viable pollen and the stigma is selfed by that pollen as it grows upward through the anther tubular grouping. Some scabiosa flowers bear a lot of fertile floret seeds by that mechanism, while other scabiosa flowers have florets that appear to be self sterile. It is possible to find viable pollen in some scabiosa florets, and you can pull open those florets to extract the tubular anther grouping to use that pollen to pollinate stigmas on that flower or stigmas on a different flower.

    I did that today on the 3Z flower pictured above. I have noticed that the scabiosa florets nearest the petals tend to be more petal-like and that the scabiosa florets nearest the center tend to be more like pollen florets. It's a little tedious (or a lot tedious) pulling scabiosa florets open to access their stigmas and/or their pollen anthers. It's like another surgical procedure on the zinnias. But it can give you access to pollen that you didn't know you had, or it can give you access to receptive stigmas that you didn't know you had.

    There is quite a bit of variation in scabiosa flowered zinnia flowers, including the marigold flowered version, which has a lot of stigmas accessible to pollination without surgery.

    ZM

  • zen_man
    Original Author
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Dave,

    I'm glad we have a similar interest in tissue culture. I became interested in it only about two years ago, first as a possible means of large-scale asexual propagation of zinnia clones, and second as a means of producing mutations in an otherwise stable strain of a plant.

    "...I don't see the big reason to do it yet. I don't have a need for 200 or 2000 plants, for example. Cuttings are sufficient for me to preserve the line to next year."

    My Maine garden was possibly ten times as large as my garden here in Kansas, and I did have room for 2000 plants or even more. But here in Kansas, I could make room for 200 plants, so tissue culture could be helpful to me, and I expect to try it sometime in the next 12 months, perhaps as a Winter activity.

    It is true that cuttings are sufficient to preserve a line of zinnias until next year, although there are hazards in indoor growing or greenhouse growing that aren't so serious outdoors. For example, a thrips epidemic wiped out my indoor zinnias during the Winter of 2007/2008 before I realized what the problem was. Thrips are not usually a problem outdoors, because hot Summer temperatures tend to wipe them out.

    But when you want to stabilize a hybrid, you need to save a lot of seeds from it and grow them out. Cuttings can help a lot with that, but it is difficult to get more than ten cuttings from a zinnia parent plant, while if you had 200 clones of that zinnia plant, you would be in a position to produce an enormous yield of seeds. That enormous yield of seeds might be what you really need to stabilize or dehybridize a unique zinnia specimen.

    Take, for instance, JG's remarkable July Bonnet specimen. She saved seeds from it and got some interesting progeny, but no duplicate of the parent. If she had been able to save seeds from 200 clones of it, she would have been able to fill a large garden with its direct progeny, several times over, which would have multiplied her chances of getting, not only a direct duplicate of July Bonnet, but even of finding multiple examples of improved forms of July Bonnet. That is the potential that I see in tissue culture for this zinnia hobby.

    "I am wondering if we can observe some Mendellian genetics with single-colored zinnia."

    It is possible that we could find some single-gene phenotypes in zinnias, but I have observed literally hundreds of different colors in zinnias, and other characteristics that seemed to be displayed almost in a continuum.

    It seems that many interesting zinnia characteristics are effected by more than one gene, so that a Mendellian analysis could be extremely complicated even if all of the zinnia genes had been identified. There have been genomes for some plants of interest and it will be of interest to us when a zinnia genome is made available.

    But I must confess that my zinnia breeding activities are very unscientific. I am still emphasizing the fun aspect of zinnia breedings, and I tend to cross my zinnias pretty much willy-nilly. I am trying for particular goals, with some logic in my crosses. But I am not thinking Mendellian. I am thinking more like recombinations of many, many gene combinations.

    And I do keep in mind that it has been found that the DNA spirals contain many apparently inactive codes and combinations that seem to be holdovers from previously active genes. I think there still are DNA code fragments from prehistoric zinnias that don't exist anymore in nature. (Shades of Jurassic Park?) Apparently zinnias have genetic surprises that can be invoked by our unscientific activities, like for example, JG's July Bonnet. There is an enormous amount of stuff that I don't know about this, but I think that working with zinnias is fun. And, sometimes by accident, educational, and a bit humbling as well.

    ZM

  • davemichigan
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    ZM,

    I see what you mean about having some needs to duplicate plants. Before I started doing hybridizing, I didn't think there was a need (except perhaps at one time I thought that filling a church with 200 or more poinsettias for Christmas without the needs of purchasing it would be cool).

    But with hybridizing, yes, there is some need. I might do it this winter too. I once saw a web site with simple tissue culture procedure (with sterilization but agar-agar with fertilizer + vitamin pill (for micronutrients) + some sugar). I think whatever works in the natural environment will work as long as it is sterile. I might try the simple approach first, just as an experiment. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. Nothing much to lose anyway.

    I am not going to be too scientific about hybridizing. I once was very interested in theoretical parts, but later I found that even if we know how the genes work for particular traits, if more than one gene is involed, the combination becomes large that it would require so much space to grow many plants in order to find the stable trait. For me that becomes impractical. So nowadays I read a little here and there. I think the theory is useful is knowing what to watch, but not having enough space, one almost have to depend on luck too as there are so many combinations.

  • jackier_gardener
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Good morning!

    Some of you have talked about volunteers in the garden.. I don't believe I've ever had volunteer zinnias, but year to year, somehow the finches manage to spread sunflower seeds around. They are already hanging around the garden waiting for this big guy to make seeds, and are eating zinnia seeds as appetizers in anticipation.

    {{gwi:15841}}

    One of my seeds from last year gave me this scabious flower with unusual color:

    {{gwi:15843}}

    JG

  • zen_man
    Original Author
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    JG,

    That scabiosa has an unusual color, and I like it. It is a nice pale pastel color, like you might find on a paint chip for a wall color. But it has a base color of a pink hue, so it must have Whirligig-type ancestry as well. I would definitely save seeds from it.

    This "toothy" specimen bloomed recently:

    {{gwi:15846}}

    It is actually rather similar in flower form to a toothy specimen that I used as a breeder several years ago, but this one has a much more delicate color. Now if I could just get that in a 6-inch or 7-inch flower...

    ZM

  • holtzclaw
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I hope you have been successful with the 'Red Spider' Peruvian cross. You may be more certain after you collect seeds. My Z. tenuifolia seed looked more like marigold than zinnia seed. I tried a cross of 'Red Spider' with Z. violacea and retrieved 17 seed, but none of them germinated. I was surprised, because the seed looked full.

    The 'July Bonnet' seems like it wants to recreate itself more so than most zinnias that are selfed. Judging from the photos of July 15 and June 24, your results seem more similar than dissimilar. You were disappointed that there were no curly central petals, which made me wonder if 'July Bonnet' had curly petals initially. You had wondered about the correlation between seed size and flower type. You may be onto something. Recognizing characteristics that are inherited together (linked) is super helpful in breeding programs. I remember one study that concluded that a higher percentage of cactus type blooms come from pointed seeds than from ovate seeds from the same seedheads.

    I am curious about the progression of some flowers shown earlier. Both specimens were eyecatching tricolors. Photos were posted July 5 and June 30. Are subsequent blooms as impressive?

  • jackier_gardener
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    HC,

    I agree with you that we should always keep our eyes open for linked characteristics in the plants. And those characteristics may represent linkages between floral traits, or floral traits and traits in other parts of the plant (e.g., leaves).

    The next example is not a linkage issue, but possibly evidence that I may have had a hybrid. The thing that made me think I might have a hybrid between tenuifolia and a peruviana, is that the tenuifolias consistently have very narrow petals, and rather wide leaves. The peruvianas have wide petals and comparatively narrow leaves. The plant I got has petals that are narrower than the peruvianas and wider than the tenuifolias. The leaves were very similar to those of the tenuifolias. Frankly, I wasn't all that excited because all the flowers are red! Last year, for some reason, my yellow peruvianas didn't come up, so I reordered seeds for this year. I'm going to assume my possible hybrid had a tenuifolia mother because its seeds were in with the tenuifolias. So, this year I will try and cross a tenuifolia and peruviana using pollen from a yellow peruviana. Orange flowers will convince me of a successful cross!

    I haven't yet had successive blooms on the June 30 and July 5 flowers, but I do have buds--will see what happens!

    Actually, thanks for reminding me that the red curly petals of July Bonnet were not there initially--I do recall they came with time. Some of the F1s are reminding me of that a little now. Maybe I have some hope here...

    {{gwi:15848}}{{gwi:15850}}

    Another interesting feature of these flowers is that the backside of the petals is a bluish-white color.

    What Arlan said about the scabiosas developing borders on their petals with age was confirmed once again here with this flower I saw today.

    {{gwi:15853}}

    Interesting effect! This one really stood out...

    ZM, your toothy flower is nice. I have a couple that are about 3 1/4 inches wide and not so symmetrical.(I don't know if yours is larger..).
    {{gwi:15855}}{{gwi:15859}}

    You're welcome to have seeds from these, if you're interested in them for breeding purposes; they've been selfed. I have certain lines of flowers I want to keep for myself ;-), but you, Dave, Arlan, or HC are welcome to one shipment if I might have something you might want to try and work with.

    JG

  • holtzclaw
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I'm enjoying the various directions this thread is taking us.

    I have no experience with growing Peruvians (except corn) so I didn't want to jump to conclusions about the possibility of a cross with 'Red Spider'. Last year was my only experience growing 'Red Spider' and I found mine to be totally uniform in every aspect. When I saw the little one in the middle of your photo, I just felt sure it's a cross. Peruvian has 24 chromosomes, but I can't find info as to Z. tenufolia's number.

    I'm hypothesizing here, but ... if you could have success selfing the "cross" you have, you might still get some variations in color even though both parent specimens/species appear identical in color. I have a couple of reasons for believing that:
    1) In backcrosses of 'Profusion' to the parent Z. violacea, some new petal color shades resulted. It was surmised that modifiers from one species had been provided the opportunity to perform on base colors that were chemically different to the colors they were normally given opportunities to act upon.
    2) In breeding pigeons I have set up matings of individuals that appeared to share a trait (eg.: white plumage). Their offspring were consistently non-white. What I did not realize is that each parent line had a completely different set of gene combinations which were causing that line to appear white. In F2 generations I would be able to produce more whites, but in a ratio of 1:3:8:3:1 where each 1 represents a white for a different reason; the 8 is the dominant color I was getting consistently in the F1; and the 3's are two other colors due to recessive modifiers getting the chance to act upon dominant genes from the opposite "white" line, but without the first dominant modifier.

    I doubt I've made myself clear, but feel sure you all will understand my intention.

  • holtzclaw
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I've made a discovery in my garden that has the wheels turning in my head. First is another photo of the same plant shown in my second July 13 post. Its female parent was a 'Swizzle' and the male parent was a waist high single orange. This plant is all of 5 inches high.

  • holtzclaw
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    This photo is a new 'Swizzle' cross with the exact same parents as the previous post. The difference is that the 'Swizzle' was the male parent and the single orange was the female. The flowers on the two plants are surprisingly similar (considering 'Swizzle' is an F1 hybrid and the orange was a volunteer that caught my fancy). This plant is already 38 inches tall at first bloom. That's taller than the taller parent. I'm wondering if the female parent is not the major contributor to determining height.

  • davemichigan
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    >

    JG, that is very nice and generous of you. Thank you very much in advance! I will ask about it later. This is really wonderful as it can save me one or two years.

  • zen_man
    Original Author
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    JG,

    "...but you, Dave, Arlan, or HC are welcome to one shipment if I might have something you might want to try and work with."

    I have been hesitant to offer breeder seed or to suggest trading breeder seeds because my seeds still seem to be very unpredictable, and the percentage germination is not a tested thing like the seed companies offer. I think most seed company seed has been tested to 80% or better, while my saved seeds probably average about 50%, sometimes significantly more and sometimes significantly less. Occasionally a water damaged head will have very low germination. I still have doubts about my germinating techniques, and hopefully I will learn more about how to germinate zinnia seeds well.

    I still get only about one "good" zinnia in 10 or 20 plants. I think that has to do with my practice of crossing hybrids with hybrids, which really exaggerates the heterozygosity of my seeds.

    But as long as we all understand that there are no guarantees on what the results will be, I think it might be a good thing to trade seeds in order to increase the depth of our gene pools. We can work out the details of trading seeds and helping people get started who don't have seeds to trade. Incidentally, I like your toothy specimen on the left, because of its informal petal arrangement.

    Your zinnia gene pool is probably much deeper than mine, even though I started hand pollinating before you did. Your practice of planting a variety of zinnias, letting the bees do your cross pollinating work for you, and then saving seeds was a very efficient way of building a really diverse gene pool.

    I like this specimen, which just bloomed a few days ago.

    {{gwi:15863}}

    I think it was in 2007, in a planting of Burpee Burpeeana zinnias, when I found a specimen with an unusual blending of white with rose. At that time it reminded me of the effects you can get when knife painting with oil paints. I tagged that zinnia as a breeder and mostly selfed it, although I was disappointed with my seed yield from it and feared that I might lose the effect. But the seeds that I did get seemed to transmit the white blended trait successfully, because I have gotten it in several progeny. Sometimes it shows up as petals with white on their base merging to full color on the petal ends, rather like this specimen displays.

    As I write this, we are getting thunderstorms and I am concerned that a couple of my seedheads are getting water damage out in the garden. There are advantages to indoor seed setting and green seed planting.

    ZM

  • jackier_gardener
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Hello everyone!

    Probably by witnessing some of my crosses here, it can be seen that predicting offspring in flowers with a diverse genetic background is a huge challenge. I thought that if any of you would like to try and enrich your gene pools with a particular trait or set of traits (e.g., full yellow cactus flower or tall plant with narrow leaves), I would be glad to send up to a few hundred seeds with a parent(s) having those characteristics your way. I wander out to the garden and see all the different plants that could be experimented with, and know I surely can't do it all, nor have all the ideas to carry out novel crosses. Now would be the time for me to cover certain flowers so they could be selfed or crossed, and then chances of getting a trait in offspring might be enhanced. The seeds may or may not germinate, not even have the hoped for traits--it's a totally experimental process. But even a contribution to the compost pile is a positive thing ;-)...

    HC, I think I understand your thoughts on getting similar phenotypes from different gene combinations, and conversely, getting different phenotypes from the same genetic combination due to such factors as environmental conditions. You have epistasis, imprinting, linkage, incomplete dominance, co-dominance and all other kinds of genetic (and epigenetic) relationships that may be at play. My hypothesis is that the genes responsible for pigmentation in the peruvianas and tenuifolias are similar, and maybe that will be tested this summer! How the different genes for different types of pigmentation interact is anyone's guess...I guess orange, when between red and yellow...will see! It's interesting how your Swizzle-nonSwizzle crosses are going. I made a Swizzle female-Big Red male cross , and have three flowers on three plants now. Will post those shortly.

    ZM, that's a gorgeous pink and cream flower you have! I like the shade of rose and then, the unusual shape of the petals make it different. I hope you can get more of them. Your breeding program is becoming very sophisticated, and you're getting such good results which inspire us all. I'm starting by looking at mutations, or particular traits and watching the inheritance of those. Most likely, I'll wind up with some very unusual specimen that has few esthetic qualities, but that's OK.. the whole thing is a lot of fun.

    JG

  • holtzclaw
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    For what it's worth; in part 10 I had posted a photo of a 3Z which later began to produce pairs of leaves. That specimen has finally produced a bloom which is deformed. Roughly one fifth of the circle of petals is missing and the longest petals are opposite the missing ones.

    JG, I want to take you up on your seed offer too. I've been scanning some of your previous posts to see what I really like. (Loopy has always been a favorite.) I too have saved and labeled scads of '08 seed which I would be glad to offer to our regulars, though I have not had any spectacular specimens to collect from so far. I've done a better job of note taking and labeling this year than ever, but in truth, I'm disappointed with the majority of what is blooming right now.

    I believe that your hypothesis concerning color genes in Peruvian and 'Red Spider' is right on. Still, I'm hopeful that in an F2, a modifier from one species can find a gene from the opposite species to act on that it didn't have access to in its own species.

  • davemichigan
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I think the sweep swap is a wonderful idea! It is not an F-1, but we all know that, so it is perfectly fine. And we all have different interests, so one's reject might be another's interest.

    I probably don't have much to swap though since mine for this year will all come from standard packets, but who knows. I will post pictures if anything interesting come by. Right now the first flower is half open, but it looks pretty "standard."

  • jackier_gardener
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Hello again!

    Last year, I made this cross with a Big Red male x Swizzle female:

    {{gwi:15866}} X {{gwi:15869}}

    to get these three F1s. The purple one and one with orange tips are both about ten inches tall. The third, that is still opening and is still mostly red, is about three feet tall.

    {{gwi:15871}}{{gwi:15872}}

    {{gwi:15873}}

    My Chippendale that was a 3Z (main stem) is showing the typical Chippendale flower on that stem. No other flowers have appeared yet.

    {{gwi:15874}}

    JG

  • davemichigan
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    JG, I always appreicate your posting of the parents and children together. We can learn a lot from that.

    So in this particular cross, were you trying to get big and bicolor? If so, it looks like you achieved the goal in the 3rd flower (I think I can see the bicolor effect from the picture). Yes, it is mostly red, but it means the two colors happen to be similar. Maybe if you self cross it, there is better chance to get the big + bicolor, perhaps with more color variation?

    Or maybe if you later have others with big + bicolor you can cross them again?

    This is so interesting!

  • jackier_gardener
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Dave,

    I didn't get enough offspring from the above cross to really make a valid conclusion, but just looking at the few F1s there, I think I may have overwhelmed the system with red pigment. I was kind of hoping to get a tall red and white swizzle type, and I thought the Big Red would liven up the red color. Possibly I'd be better off just crossing a swizzle with a tall white-flowered plant, maybe a cactus, and see what happens.

    I have a feeling the taller plant with the young mostly red flower will give rise to mature flowers like the short orange and red flower.

    JG

  • zen_man
    Original Author
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    JG,

    "You have epistasis, imprinting, linkage, incomplete dominance, co-dominance and all other kinds of genetic (and epigenetic) relationships that may be at play."

    You have an impressive understanding of the genetic complexities that may be in play with our zinnia breeding. I haven't had any epiphanies yet, but I have come to expect a high percentage of non-scabiosa singles in my scabiosa flowered recombinants. This is one of my current scabiosa recombinants:

    {{gwi:15875}}

    It doesn't have a very good center, but I like the toothy form of the guard petals. So I am using it as a breeder, because I don't have a lot of better zinnias at this time. Apparently scabi recombinants can have several grades of centers, ranging from fully populated with good florets to mostly populated with off-type florets. My guess is that more than one gene influence the center florets. I'm hoping there is a size gene, because I would like to get huge florets.

    ZM

  • jackier_gardener
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    ZM,

    That flower has a lot of interesting features: the color, the toothy petals, and the large central florets. The florets almost resemble the form of little lilies. I agree with you about the wide range of variability in the scabious zinnias.

    I wonder in the range of floret size and type, where the flowers with fully tubular petals lie? Have you ever grown up seeds from those flowers to get similar F1s? It would be interesting to cross one of those flowers with tubular petals with a flower like you have just shown to see if the size of the central florets could be enlarged in the offspring. I'm anxious to get seeds from my tubular-petalled plant. I've been selfing the first flower and hope to get more flowers on that plant.

    JG

  • zen_man
    Original Author
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    JG,

    "I wonder in the range of floret size and type, where the flowers with fully tubular petals lie? Have you ever grown up seeds from those flowers to get similar F1s? It would be interesting to cross one of those flowers with tubular petals with a flower like you have just shown to see if the size of the central florets could be enlarged in the offspring."

    I am glad you reminded me about the tubulars. I have saved seed from several of them, but I don't recall having planted any yet. I will be planting some fall crop zinnias shortly, and I will definitely try to include some tubulars. I realize this may be a little late to be planting zinnias for outdoor growing, but if a frost threat develops I can always take cuttings for growing indoors.

    I think I mentioned before that, while "surgically" splitting some of the tubular petals to gain access to their stigmas for pollination, I discovered some anther-like features inside the tubes, very similar to those in the florets of the scabiosa configuration. The tubes may have the ability to self themselves by a mechanism very similar to how the florets can self themselves. In both cases, a functional stigma grows past anther-like organs that are apparently pollen-bearing. Like in the florets, the tubular stigmas may or may not be fertilized.

    I think the possibilities for crossing tubulars with scabiosa types are most interesting. A scabiosa flower with tubular guard petals would have a lot of possibilities for generating new flower forms in zinnias. And, as you suggested, it might be a means of increasing the scabi floret size significantly. By all means, self your tubular and save seeds from it. With anthers in the tubes, the tubulars are a unique zinnia flowerform, with many cross pollination possibilities.

    ZM

  • davemichigan
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Hi, I have a question about when you should start netting the flowers. So far Thumbelina and Liliput are very "standard," so I will just let them open pollinate.

    The Whirligig and Burperean Giant (pictures shown in that order) are more interesting... not too exciting either (well, actually that is for you. For me, since I didn't grow any multicolored ones last year, these look NICE to me!) :-) They are F1 hybrid for certain look, so they look standard too, but if I don't get other more interesting ones, at least I have these to self for study next year.

    The petals are not all ready yet. They look like they will be doubles. But the stigmas are there already, so I wonder if I should protect them with nettings now so that insects won't pollinate them.

    {{gwi:15876}}

    {{gwi:15877}}

  • davemichigan
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    PS: They have nicely too. Each one has at least 5 more branches with buds. I suppose I can/should net the buds now if I want to be certain about the crosses.

    I am happy. :-)

    (I don't know why the system doesn't allow you to enter a message with the same subject line. It must be to prevent spam, but I think any spamming machine can easily modify a character or two to make a new subject line). sigh

  • zen_man
    Original Author
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Dave,

    I like both your Whirligig and your Burpeeana Giant. The Burpeeana Giant may become more solid colored in the next few days, but the petals have a nice corrugated texture that I like. Crossing those two could give some interesting results. The colors of both look quite bright and lively. I don't see how a hybrid between those two could turn out bad.

    I first started using nets to keep bees from "stealing" pollen from my choice breeders. The nets virtually revolutionized my breeding by giving me a much more dependable and abundant source of pollen from zinnias that looked especially good to me. Then I began using the nets to protect my stigmas from unwanted bee pollination. And finally, I began using the nets to keep seed-eating birds from eating my cross-pollinated seeds. For some perverse reason, the birds actually seemed to prefer my hand-hybridized seeds to the regular seeds. Perhaps the hybrid vigor made the seeds bigger and plumper and tastier. Or perhaps it was just my imagination.

    I have noticed that many of my hand pollinated seeds turn out to be noticeably larger than the regular seed packet zinnia seeds. That may be because I tend to preferentially choose the larger seeds to plant from my breeder seeds, and that may have the long term effect of breeding zinnias to have larger seeds. That wasn't a conscious goal, but I suppose larger seeds might be more attractive to birds.

    I am currently trying to think of better designs for my zinnia nets. I had settled on a simple flat rectangular net because it is simplest and quickest to make, but now I am thinking that I would like my nets to fit the zinnia bloom better, to be lighter, and to have less wind drag. I am planning to try several new designs and construction methods. Arlan used fiberglass window screen to make "zinnia bloom cages" and they seemed to work well, so I think I will also experiment with fiberglass window screen for making zinnia bloom protectors. I may even use a combination of materials, like fiberglass window screen and nylon netting. I will also experiment with lightweight techniques for joining the bloom cage components.

    ZM

  • jackier_gardener
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Dave,

    Those zinnias have really great, bright colors! It would be interesting to see what the offspring may look like. The two flowers seem to be complements to each other--where one is yellow, the other is red. Will the F1 flowers of these be solid or two-toned? Will there be a predominate pattern? Seems like a good cross that could tell you lots, and at the same time, give you nice, bright-flowered offspring!

    I only have one year's experience with using netting or covers of any kind, but ZM's inventions are very helpful ones as described above. I've noticed that bees of different kinds will fly flower to flower, and even if your flowers may not be shedding pollen, often the bees will quickly go near them and check them out for pollen, and at that instant, it's possible that they could drop pollen from another flower on them.

    And the birds, for me, especially the finches, will steal the seeds before they get a chance to dry and be collected, so there a cover is important, too.

    I could have made more solid covers this year, but have not. I can't help but think that wind pollination with the nets could be a possibility. The thing that makes me think that is that often flowers without nets that appear to have nothing but stigmas often bear seeds --could this just be insects? I don't know!

    JG

  • holtzclaw
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Dave, you're getting some insightful answers. I can only add that the netting does not stop sweat bees from getting through. I think they mostly self pollinates the flower, though I'm sure that they bring some pollen in with them. If I did not use nets, all the pollen would be gone by the time I get out there.
    I would like to see new ideas for netting as the one I'm using bunches up the bloom so that I can't really enjoy its beauty. Also it tends to weigh them down if they get wet (which has not been a problem in over a month here).
    I'm jealous because I've never had a bicolor Burpeeana. The unevenness is striking and the color pattern is super. Like Jackier, the first thing I noticed is that they are opposites of one another. Net those babies and use them as a cross. Good luck!

  • davemichigan
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Thanks all for your input. I did notice that the colors of the two are complementary to each one, so originally I wasn't thinking about crossing them. I meant to say I was going to self cross each one of them. I thought they might cancel one another.

    But after you guys mentioned it, I thought, well, maybe it will show which pattern is dominant, or maybe it will have some effect that I don't think, so I will cross them.

    But things change fast after the first day. This morning, the Burpeerean Giant has turned more toward orange (single color) as ZM said. The Whirligig has opened the 2nd layer this morning, and right now it has 3 layers.

    It is raining lightly now, so I will take some pictures tomorrow and net them. Here are the pictures from this morning:

    {{gwi:15878}}

    {{gwi:15880}}

    They have turned to be more common look. Oh well, I hope the next generation will give different petal shapes. The colors (esp. that of Whirligig) look good to me, but I like a little different petal shapes).

    I still have 50 to 80 coming to bloom.

  • zen_man
    Original Author
    14 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Dave,

    I still like those two zinnias, and think they would be an interesting cross. That Whirligig is so bright it almost hurts your eyes. It should be a good breeder. With 50 to 80 more zinnias coming into bloom for you, we have a lot to look forward to, to see what you will get.

    As we arrive at 100 messages, this message thread is becoming a little slow to load, so we will continue over in It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 12. See you all over there. Keep those zinnia pictures coming.

    ZM