"Undisclosed"

"Undisclosed"

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'.

To celebrate a sunny day: 1-72-1 by Ralph Moore.

Breeding: Ralph S. Moore, 1972. Sister seedling to 'Rise 'N' Shine'. Parentage: 'Little Darling' X 'Yellow Jewel'.

Today I am celebrating another sunny, warm(ish) day on the farm by presenting one of Ralph Moore's most important yellow breeding plants, 1-72-1. This just hapens to be a sister seedling to 'Rise 'N' Shine', Moore's most commercially successful yellow miniature. In many ways 1-72-1 it is very similar to 'Rise 'N' Shine' with one significant exception: this is a larger plant, with a growth habit that has come to be known as "a climbing miniature". (Its not really a climber, but rather a large plant with 4 to 5 foot arching canes)

A little known tidbit about this plant's history is that it was submitted for the AOE trials and was scheduled to be released as a commercial variety if it won an award. Unfortunately it didn't win an AOE, but it played a far more important role in Moore' breeding program. 1-72-1 is the parent of many excellent roses, including 'Cal Poly', 'Golden Gardens', 'Joycie', 'Pink Poodle', 'Sequoia Ruby', 'Twister' and 'Work of Art'. Moore made it known to many of his hybridizer friends that although 'Rise 'N' Shine' has played a role in breeding many excellent roses, 1-72-1 was the better parent. 'Rise 'N' Shine' breeds far too many white and off-white seedlings, whereas 1-72-1 breeds a higher percentage of strong yellows and oranges. Without 1-72-1 we'd have a significantly less rich gene pool in the yellow color group, and its influence can be traced through many generations of modern roses both large and small. Here's to Ralph Moore on this sunny day, and to the lovely golden 1-72-1!

More from 'Joycie' X 'Fortune's Double Yellow'

More of the seedlings from the 47-03 group. In this order:

47-06-13

47-06-11

47-06-03

47-06-09

We recently had a week of unseasonably cold weather and this group of seedlings was kept in an unheated greenhouse and was subjected to the full extent of the cold snap. Night temps went as low as 8F and these containers, along with most of my collection, froze solid. I allowed this to happen in order to test the freeze survivability of these seedlings. I know, thats a harsh thing to do, but I felt it was necessary. Sadly, one of the prettiest of this four, 47-06-09 was killed by the freeze as far as I can tell. There is no live wood left on the plant and that does not bode well. Ah well, this is what must be done to find out who can tolerate freezes and who can't. Most rose growers in North America need Winter hardy plants for their modern gardens and I need to take that into consideration.

47-06-05: 'Joycie' X 'Fortune's Yellow'

Yet another seedling from this group. Larger foliage than some of the others, and the bloom was close to 2.5". Long arching canes to 5 feet so far, undoubtedly will get bigger. No pollen that I could find, and did not set seed. I doubt I will try to use it in breeding, as I dislike the muddled bloom form with the misshapen petaloids at the center.

47-06-06: another 'Joycie' X Fortune's Yellow' seedling.

Pictured here is 47-06-06, the sixth of this group of seedlings to bloom.

Similar to the others from this batch it has arching growth to at least 6 feet, blooms once and doesn't set seed. Its pollen was tried on a few seed parents and one hip resulted from a cross with 'June Laver'. I will probably make more attempts to use it in breeding this coming Spring.

This was the reddest of the lot and curiously it has some white China-like streaks in some of the outer petals. This seedling is phototropic, darkening in color as it ages. No fragrance was detected. Ploidy: probably a triploid, considering its pedigree.

47-06-01: Joycie X Fortune's Yellow

This week I was sorting through my 2009 photo library and encountered a group of photos depicting seedlings from a 2006 cross of 'Joycie' X 'Fortune's Double Yellow'. For most of these seedlings, 2009 was their first flowering and I documented all of the dozen or so that had bloomed. I intended on writing about these ages ago, but had forgotten to do so!

Rather than assemble these photos all into one article, I am going to present them one at a time over a period of a few days. More fun that way, don't you think? ;-)

47-06-01, the seedling depicted here, was the first one to bloom, flowering for the first time in 2008. It was one of only two that bloomed in its second year and this photo illustrates its second year of blooming. As it happens, this is the only one out of 14 that shows strong yellow/orange coloring. The rest are pinks with various shadings of red or peach. (well, one is a clear pink and one is a lavender/pink) This bloom is about 1.5" in diameter, has no fragrance, lasts for several days and tends to deepen in color rather than fading with age. The photo is an accurate depiction: it is a deep yellow/orange with a dark rust colored overlay towards the outer petal edges.

The idea here had been to introduce remontancy genes into the 'Fortune's Yellow' breeding, and to reduce the size of the plant by using 'Joycie', a miniature. It was hoped that some strong yellows would result, but that wasn't the case, except this one plant. None of these seedlings has shown any inclination to repeat, which may or may not happen with age. However, all of these seedlings should have one copy of the modern remontancy gene which can be passed on to the next generation, assuming there is some fertility moving forward.

47-06-01 is one of about four selections that I attempted to use in breeding in 2009. Not one of these four set seed (in fact none of this group of seedlings set open pollinated seed). However, pollen from this seedling (and one other, which I will describe soon) did result in a few seeds when placed on some of my more willing seed setters. We will see in a few months whether any of these seeds is viable or not. I will continue to use pollen from two seedlings from this cross in other crosses in 2010.

In terms of plant habit and behavior, this seedling (and most of the others) is what you might describe as a "climbing miniature", with long arching canes that branch and bloom on the lateral branches. Most of these remain under 6 feet tall so far, but I get the impression that some of them will exceed that height by at least 2X. All but one have small, modern looking foliage. At this time, all are growing in containers in one greenhouse, and so I know little about disease resistance, except to say that they have all shown a marked resistance to Mildew when grown under glass. All of these are moderately thorny as well, and have proven to be quite deciduous, unlike 'Fortune's Yellow' which is inclined to hang on to its foliage.

Stay tuned for more about the 47-06 group.

56-06-05: a new yellow climber.

I've mentioned the Moore Wichurana breeder 0-47-19 several times before, and I thought I should show some of the work thats coming out of it. I use it with the goal of improving disease resistance, plus it often brings added vigor to a breeding line, and the seedlings are generally very easily rooted from cuttings.

Illustrated here is 56-06-05, a cross of 'Joycie' X (0-47-19 X 'The Yeoman')*. The pollen parent, listed as 42-03-01, is a vigorous, once-blooming climber with glossy, disease free foliage and clusters of butter yellow blooms at most every leaf axil along the arching canes. 42-03-01 rarely sets seed and its pollen is only marginally fertile, but I have persisted in getting seedlings from it since it is an opportunity for improvement of the health and vigor of the breeding line. 56-06-05, the yellow seedling pictured here, is the first seedling from 42-03-01 worth mentioning so far, and I hope it passes on its health and vigor to another generation.

56-06-05 is also a vigorous climbing plant, with bright grass green glossy foliage that so far has had no problems with disease. Blooms are fully double and about 2.5 inches across, with a pleasant, but mild Tea (phenolic) scent that often accompanies yellows. It took two years for this seedling to mature enough to start flowering, which is a reminder that sometimes its worth keeping an interesting seedling, even though it may not bloom the first (or second!) year. I'm much more inclined to keep un-bloomed seedlings from unconventional breeding lines in the hopes that they may have traits of value in furthering the line. 56-06-05 appears to be fertile, as it has produced seed hips with several pollens. I won't be able to comment on fertility till next Spring when I find out if these seeds germinate or not.

Note to breeders: I have a couple plants of 42-03-01, the pollen parent of the seedling above, if anyone is interested in working with this seedling.

* 42-03-01 is listed as 0-47-19 X 'The Yeoman', although I have reason to doubt the parentage. I suspect this seedling may in fact be a 0-47-19 X 'Out of Yesteryear' seedling that got mislabeled, since it bears a strong resemblance to several seedlings from the latter cross. It is also suspicious that a cross using 'The Yeoman' would produce anything in yellow, whereas 'Out of Yesteryear' easily could.

Old dogs and new tricks, part III

In 2006 I decided to do an experiment with 'Fortune's Double Yellow', the massive climbing Hybrid Gigantea, by putting its pollen on my favorite orange mini breeder, 'Joycie'. Why? To see what would happen, of course! Fortune's Double Yellow' is believed to be capable of breeding strong yellow offspring, and yet as far as we know it has not been well explored as a breeding plant. It is probably almost completely sterile as a seed bearer but its pollen is quite fertile.

I obtained about 21 seedlings from cross 47-06, none of which bloomed in their first year of growth, which was Summer of 2007. They were moved into gallon pots to mature for the following year. In 2008, three of these bloomed: one was a deep orange five-petaled flower with a dark rusty-red overlay, one was a very double ruffled hot pink 2" bloom and one was a very large medium pink Tea-shaped bloom on a vigorous plant which would obviously be a climber. In fact, that latter is proving to grow in very much the style of a Gigantea climber with classic Gigantea foliage and large, vigorous canes bearing a few hooked prickles. The rose illustrated here is that seedling. As you can see it holds it blooms in a pendant fashion, which is wholly appropriate for a climber that will present its blooms from several feet above the viewer's head.

Now, in Spring 2009, fourteen of the 47-06 group have bloomed and for the most part are quite disappointing. None has strong yellow coloring except the five-petaled orange-red one. Most are pinks with varying degrees of yellow, and a couple are phototropic, developing a red blush with age. I have pollinated a few of these, and used their pollen elsewhere, to determine if any are fertile. I believe 'Joycie' is a tetraploid, and 'Fortune's Double Yellow' being a diploid, these seedlings are likely triploids. (Although work David Zlesak and I did with the Moore Hybrid Bracteatas showed that seedlings of mixed ploidy crosses did not always have the ploidy expected of the cross) With any luck this big pink seedling will be fertile, as it would be fun to create some new Hybrid Gigantea climbers for mild climates.

I have documented the rest of these seedlings with photos and will show these in the next few days. I just need to make time to prepare the photos, but with the pollination season in full swing right now, that could be difficult! Stay tuned.

Old dogs and new tricks

I've said this before and its worth mentioning again: 'Joycie' is a remarkable rose to use in breeding. It will take pollen from just about anything and produce loads of viable seeds that germinate well. Even more important, it is very malleable, unlike its relative 'Sequoia Ruby' which I spoke of recently. (Both 'Joycie' and 'Sequoia Ruby' share the same seed parent: 1-72-1, which I'll tell you about in an upcoming post)

The seedling pictured at left is 52-04-03, a cross of 'Joycie' X 'Maréchal Niel'. As you can see, this rose is heavily influenced by the pollen parent, a Tea-Noisette from 1857. I doubt 'Maréchal Niel' has been used in breeding is quite some time (although I see the clever and innovative Louis Lens has a 1995 hybrid listed using it with R. helenae.)

52-04-03 has been slow to mature, as one would expect from a cross like this. Tea hybrids usually are slow to build up size, and finally, at four years of age this one is showing its potential. It doesn't much like my climate, which isn't surprising, so I have budded it last year onto R. multiflora and will keep a specimen in the greenhouse where it will perform better. The photo is of that bud grafted specimen in a five gallon container, taken two days ago. This will be a warm climate hybrid, I expect, and in the right situation it will make a climber. How big it will ultimately get is anybody's guess at this point. I'm guessing modestly large: 8 to 10 feet, perhaps.

This beautiful seedling bears clusters of nodding 3.5" blooms that open slowly and last a long time. In the open garden, the coloring is quite a bit richer with hints of antique gold. It has a moderate Tea fragrance that at 10 or 11 in the morning is quite wonderful. It has recently formed a new shoot from the base that has about 9 blooms forming on it, indicating that it may be capable of making bold displays. It is also nearly continuous with bloom, cycling rapidly. Sounds promising?

I will begin propagating this a bit later on this season. It may require an understock to perform its best, we'll see.

31-06-05: orange Rugosa seedling.

A few days ago I spoke about a seedling I am using in my work called "Joyseed", a cross of 'Joycie' and the Ralph Moore Rugosa hybrid "Magseed". I had mentioned how "Joyseed" was passing on traits like good coloring, attractive growth habit, etc. Well, here is an example of the kind of shrub "Joyseed" is breeding. Meet 31-06-05, a cross of 'Lilian Austin' X "Joyseed".

31-06-05 is still a young plant in a large container and is very early in the evaluation process. It blooms freely in clusters, with medium sized fully double blooms in a blend of yellow, orange and pink, making for a very pleasant color blend. It tends to be more pink when the Summer heat is on. It doesn't have a lot of fragrance unfortunately, but it does have an excellent shrub architecture, making a rounded, balanced shrub that looks like it will remain shapely without the need for a lot of "secateurial intervention". (IE: pruning) I will be using it in breeding this season (Spring 2009) as it showed last year that it sets seed readily.

You can see another photo of 31-06-05 at HelpMeFind.

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"Orange Moss"

Referred to by its creator Ralph Moore as simply "OM", "Orange Moss" was a breakthrough hybrid in the breeding of modern Moss roses. It was created by crossing 'Mark Sullivan' a brightly colored Hybrid Tea, with Pedro Dot's 'Golden Moss'.When an undisclosed Hybrid Tea was pollinated with "OM", Moore obtained 44-59-4. He then crossed 'Rumba' with 44-59-4 and got his well known Floribunda Moss 'Goldmoss'. From here Ralph Moore went on to create several very attractive and very mossy miniatures in the yellow/orange color range by putting 'Goldmoss's pollen on 'Fairy Moss'.

Very little along these lines has been done by other breeders, which is somewhat surprising. There has been renewed interest in mossed roses in the past decade as people are rediscovering the old moss varieties from the 1800's and early 1900's. I know a few amateur hybridizers are now doing some work with the Moore moss hybrids, myself included. For me, the more interesting varieties are the ones that preceed the introduction of the miniaturism genes, and so I am going all the way back to "OM" to do some work.

Breeding "OM" presents some challenges: it tends to breed tall/climbing once blooming shrubs, and fertility may be a problem in moving forward. However, I think that since there are now so many new avenues to pursue that were not possible 40 years ago, it is worthwhile resurrecting plants like "OM" to see what else is possible using new, better parents. Last year I made two exploratory crosses using two very highly fertile orange/yellow breeders: 'Golden Angel' and 'Joycie'. The former I chose because it has a track record of breeding mossed progeny when a mossed pollen parent is used, and the latter because it is so very fertile and is easily influenced by the pollen parent. 'Joycie' also has a habit of passing on strong, clear coloring, which is a plus.

At the time of this writing I have several dozen seedlings from each of these crosses and will hopefully start to see some blooms in the next 4 to 6 weeks. I hope to be able to select a few full sized, mossed shrubs from these seedlings, and with any luck at all, some will be brightly colored. I will post pictures of anything I select. If these turn out to be total failures I will post a followup to that effect as well.

'Joycie' X 'Fortune's Yellow'

'Fortune's Double Yellow' is a very old Hybrid Gigantea brought from China circa 1845 by the explorer Robert Fortune. (One account documents its appearance in Europe under the name 'Rosa pseud-indica' pre-1820 when John Lindley included it under than name in his "Monograph of Roses" in 1820. It is entirely possible that it had been brought into European horticulture prior to Robert Fortune's introduction of it. We can never be certain of some of these details.) This is a very large climbing rose of massive stature. My first encounter with it was in Fresno, CA in 1999 where I found a specimen of it climbing a utility pole/fence where it had reached well over 25 feet tall and was at least 40 feet wide. It blooms in one brilliant display in the Spring, with masses of yellow/orange and pink tinted cupped blooms about 4" across. It has a very pleasant scent. This is a tender cultivar that doesn't take kindly to the cold, although I know people who grow it successfully as a modest sized shrub in zones as cold as USDA 6.

In a recent article entitled "Fun With Color: The Pigments in Rose Blossoms" by Don Holeman in the Rose Hybridizer's Association newsletter, Don painstakingly documents the floral color pigments in a number of well-known roses and provides some analysis of their meaning and potential in hybridizing. 'Fortune's Double Yellow' is mentioned in the article and the following statement is particularly interesting to me: "One source for a full compliment of yellow genes that don't derive from either 'Soleil d'Or' or 'Reve d'Or' is the Hybrid Gigantea 'Fortune's Double Yellow' ('Beauty of Glazenwood'). It also has a fair amount of cyanin and chrysanthemin to offer. Discovered in a garden in China, it has never been explored for breeding despite its fertile pollen."*

Until now, that is.

In 2006 I obtained pollen of 'Fortune's Double Yellow' from some friends in California (my plant was languishing in my open garden at the time; it has been rescued since) and I pollinated the orange miniature 'Joycie' with it. From these seeds I obtained 19 seedlings. None bloomed in their first year, which was no surprise. In Spring of 2008, three of these one year old plants flowered, sparingly; a very double Tea-like medium pink bloom about 1.5" across, a five-petaled deep orange with a yellow eye, and a large flowered deep pink that aged to a dusky lavender with greysih tints. None of these had significant fragrance. The large pink one was moved up into a five gallon can and grew like a proverbial weed, making a few 7 foot canes in one season. It is now poised to bloom, with clusters of buds at every node along the canes, just like its pollen parent 'Fortune's Double Yellow'.

Now, in April 2009, fifteen of these seedlings are set to flower. Some will bnear only one or two blooms and others have quite a few. Most of these will be blooming for the first time. The photo above depicts the buds of two of the first bloomers showing color through the sepals. These clearly have significant pigmentation, as predicted. While few, if any of these seedlings will have merit as a "finished product", I hope they have sufficient fertility to move ahead into a next generation of breeding. *crosses fingers* (This is an appealing idea since all of our modern yellow roses get their genes for yellow from R. foetida, a species that also contributed susceptibility to the fungal disease Blackspot. Perhaps this new avenue will help in overcoming some of the flaws in modern shrub roses?) Finally, after all these years, 'Fortune's Double Yellow' may get a chance to contribute its yellow genes to the breeding of a new race of richly colored hybrids.

*Rose Hybridizers Association Newsletter, Vol. XXXIX, No. 4, Winter 2008