Hybridizers: It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 4, 1 by Zen_Man

Zen_Man wrote:
Hi Caitlin,

"So you can cross more than one variety on a bloom if you wanted to?"

Yes indeed. I usually do use more than one kind of pollen on a bloom, based partly on availability of fresh pollen, and partly on my "strategy" for that particular zinnia plant. On any given day, I usually use the same kind of pollen on the open stigmas on a particular bloom. For example, on one of my zinnia breeders, I knew that the lower petals were pollinated with my trumpet flowered breeder, while the upper petals were pollinated with selected aster flowered zinnias. But I made no attempt to label or designate individual petals. I suppose that could be done, but the record keeping would be horrendous, as you guessed. Sometimes, from the appearance of the hybrid and knowledge of the mother seed parent, you can make a good guess about the male pollen donor.

"Do you cover your opening blooms in some way to keep the bees from getting there first?"

Yes, I use "hairnets" of various designs, as needed. This was an odd hot and dry summer and, for some reason there were very few bees in July and August. So I didn't bother. But then in September the bees showed up, honey bees, carpenter bees, and bumblebees, so I netted my best breeders, both to keep the bees from getting pollen, and to prevent them from randomly pollinating my breeders. Incidentally, the zinnia nets are also a good way to protect your zinnia seeds from seed eating birds.

"How many different kinds are you working with; they probably don't have names...?"

All of my breeders for this year have a code beginning with the letter E. A few of my more unique breeders also get a name, like "Buff Baby" or "Master Aster" or whatever comes to mind for that particular special specimen. I am currently shucking seeds from E90. I will probably be continuing the E series until the end of the year indoors. Any indoor or outdoor specimens designated in 2012 will start with the letter F. I got serious about the zinnia hobby in 2006 and started coding my selected specimens with a simple number, like 1, 2, 3, etc. I frequently get a second generation of zinnias outdoors in the same year, and so in 2006 the progeny of 1 were labelled as 1-0, 1-1, 1-2, etc.

In 2007 I realized that my labels would be unwieldy if I continued with the complete ancestry scheme, so I "started over" with A1, A2, A3, etc. My 2008 labels were B1, B2, B3, etc, my 2009 labels began with C, my 2010 labels began with D, and my labels this year all begin with E. I keep all the info for each label in a notebook, so that the labels that I attach to the plants can be small with just the code. That way I have the maternal ancestry of each breeder in my notebook. The male ancestry of each breeder is usually uncertain.

"How many different kinds are you working with...?"

Approximately 100 breeders are chosen for intensive pollination and cross-pollination in any given year. Each year I seem to plant more zinnias. I planted about a thousand zinnias last year and about two thousand zinnias this year. Both years I culled out and removed about 90 percent of them, and designated only a small fraction of the remainder as breeders.

Incidentally, I prefer to use Kelly forceps, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_forceps#Kelly_forceps like in the attached picture, to pick pollen florets and rub them on the target stigmas. Indoors, when the pollen just tends to pile up in the center of the florets, I frequently use a small watercolor brush to dip into the pollen and apply it.

ZM