100-09, stage two.

Today I potted up the seedlings from cross 100-09 ('Golden Angel' X 'Champlain'). I have over 100 individuals of this cross now, which is ideal. Ralph Moore told me that he believed that you weren't seeing the full scope of what was possible in a cross until you had at least 100 seedlings to look at.

Also noteworthy is that the seed parent, 'Golden Angel' is a known triploid, and yet I got nearly 98% germination from this cross. The popular mythology about triploids suggests that they are often infertile or have very limited fertility. Clearly that is not always true. I suspect if we did gene counts of many highly fertile parents, we'd discover many triploids.

Up they come!

The second seed has germinated: 'Golden Angel' X 'Champlain'.

This year I started sowing the seeds very early. First was open pollinated seed from 'Magic Wand' and a week later was this cross, 'Golden Angel' X 'Champlain'. The photo was taken yesterday morning, and by the end of the day two more seedlings were starting to emerge, so undoubtedly many more are on their way.

Regarding this cross: I have found that 'Golden Angel' (yellow miniature from the 1970's, by R. S. Moore) is quite malleable in breeding, often taking on characteristics from the other parent, to the point that none of the 'Golden Angel' traits are visually apparent. Of course, you do get a fair number of miniatures or dwarf plants, since the miniaturism trait is a dominant, but many are shrubs that show no miniaturization whatsoever. With this in mind, I made this cross using the Canadian hardy shrub 'Champlain' as the pollen parent. The hope is to obtain some very Winter hardy orange-red shrubs that bloom frequently and generously, and have attractive, compact plant architecture. It is also known that 'Golden Angel' can sometimes give highly Blackspot resistant offspring, so in combination with 'Champlain' the odds of achieving this might be improved.