Hybridizers: It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 3, 0 by Zen_Man

Zen_Man wrote:
Lucy,

Glad to have you back. Zinnia breeding does have the advantage of quick results, because zinnias do grow and develop fast, and they come up fast from seeds. Thanks to my indoor operations, I am now pollinating second generation flowers with each other and with some continuing first generation flowers to produce seeds that will become my third generation of zinnias this year. I hesitate to speculate on how many generations of zinnias a person could get in a year.

But you can get interesting results with only a casual approach to zinnia breeding. You could just grow a packet or two of zinnia seeds and save seeds from only your favorite specimens. Just repeating that process can make some impressive progress. Each new crop would be the "best of the best". Crossing your favorites with each other can make that even more interesting.

Even though Irises are your "first love", I hope that you will participate with us in at least a little casual zinnia breeding. Your background in iris breeding might help with zinnias. I wonder if an iris flowered zinnia is possible. I have seen pretty good results with marigold flowered zinnias and echinacea flowered zinnias.

Because a lot of my hybrids have at least some scabiosa flowered heritage, I am getting a lot of singles in this year's second generation. Since single zinnias are not one of my breeding objective, they are almost always rejects. Occasionally a single shows some attractive characteristics, like this one with curved petals and some scabiosa-influence florets.

ZM