If you attempt to look up the pedigree of the David Austin roses of the past decade or so, that is what you'll see. As a "fellow explorer" in rose genetics, (No, I am not drawing any comparisons between myself and Mr. Austin) I find that rather annoying and disappointing. I'd like to know what went into the making of some of his current roses. Perhaps he is just protecting what he regards as "proprietary information", or maybe he just doesn't want us to know that he is using the likes of 'Fragrant Cloud' or (gawd forbid) 'Tropicana' to achieve his results. Who knows.
I gravitate much more towards Ralph Moore's way of thinking about such matters. Allow me to paraphrase him: What have I got to lose by sharing information about parentage of my roses? You can see my "recipe" for a rose, but without my personal "ingredients", you can't make the same "cake". And besides, by the time a rose makes it to market, I've already moved ahead by six or eight years or more, and so why would I care if someone tried to duplicate my results?
Makes sense to me. I'd rather describe in a fair bit of detail what I am working on and how I am getting there. Half the fun is getting pleasing results, the other half is sharing what I've learned in the process.
And just because it doesn't feel right to write a blog post without a picture, we have today: 19-02-03 from a cross of 'Joycie' X 'Crepuscule'.
Paul, you're correct, and it is going to leave a big hole in Rose-Breeding history when we don't know the crosses that got us (Austin) where we are.
ReplyDeleteAt a guess, would you be talking about some of his recent rugosa hybrids such as 'Wild Edric'? I'm interested in seeing what's behind 'The Wedgwood Rose' and 'Kew Gardens', both of which are meant to be hybrid musks.
ReplyDeleteYou've stuck a nerve with this subject, my dear, and I think you may be onto something with DA hiding the true parentage to avoid discovery of roses used that may be outside DAs original OGR-reproduction goal. It seems the 'big' guys can get away with whatever they want to register roses ... this is just the latest iteration. How about "seedling x seedling"? or "unknown"?
ReplyDeleteSome of the parentage listed on Ralph Moore's roses look like college-level algebra equations ... I'm always fascinated, and I have been known to seek roses for my collection that are the parents of roses I already have (and like).
As a newly started amateur rose breeder, I have decided to make a point to totally avoid using roses whose parentage is not disclosed or is unreliable/suspect, unless this is totally unavoidable.
ReplyDeleteCouldn't agree with you more about the undisclosed parentage Paul. If I don't know what went in to making up a rose I won't bother with it.
ReplyDeleteLove the color and form of your 19-02-03.
I don't see it as that big a deal really... a good % of the pedigrees you see are wrong anyway and as Mr Moore said you can take the same two roses that he used and not get the same result. It's interesting to know the background but meh... I'm not inclined to ignore a rose whose background I don't know either. Rather, if it grows well for me and has the features I am looking for then it gets a go... what's the worst that can happen??? The seedlings still go through the same selection process the ones with better looking pedigrees do anyway. You can take two great roses and cross them and get a hundred lousy ones and you can take two lousy roses and put them together and get something vastly improved on both parents. Granted, the odds are stacked for and against you in both cases, but in the end I think it's a numbers game and the bigger the numbers the more likely you are to hit on good combinations from both stables. I mean, there are exceptions to this... I was faced with the decision of whether to use R. wichurana, 'Immensee', or 'Temple Bells' for a line I'm working on and went with 'Immensee' and 'Temple bells' instead of wichurana because I knew the previous two both had miniature/polyantha parents but if I had a really good unknown rose I would still use it for sure. I think Paul is looking at it from a purely academic POV in which it is of great interest to see what went on in DA's head when he decided to use such and such a rose to produce the results he has... maybe it's a good lesson in what not to do too ;) I think Paul is right when he says it's probably so that people don't know he is using such and such a rose in breeding because of their bad reputations. I feel like that when I think about using 'Rhapsody in Blue' as a parent too, but in the end I see it as a means to and end. I've also heard Mr Moore responding to questions as to why he chose such and such a rose as a parent (because the person posing the question would never use it as a parent), with something like 'because that's what I had at the time'.
ReplyDeleteIn my case, not preferring roses whos parentage is undisclosed (this doesn't mean "never using")is a gesture to support the prinicple of striving towards more transparency in breeding work, (be it accurate or inaccurate).
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