Hybridizers: It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 3, 1 by Zen_Man

Zen_Man wrote:
Hi all,

We have had some unseasonably cold weather recently here in Wellsville, Kansas and this general area, with temperatures running 25 degrees below Average. Oddly, the cooler weather has caused some of my zinnias to have more intense colors, as this specimen exhibits. Its petals come in with intense scarlet on the tips and yellow at the base, but age to a medium orange.

I guess if you were mixing paints and mixed yellow with scarlet you might get orange. I don't usually think of paint mixing when I am crossing zinnias of different colors. It's more like dominant and recessive genes, with the probability that several different genes determine the zinnia colors and color patterns. But in this case, possibly there is a segregation of pigments that blends as the petals age.

ZM