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

Zen_Man wrote:
Hi Caitlin,

"I always thought that too much humidity was the cause of mildew."

There is a little bit of an urban myth about Powdery Mildew and Zinnias. Water can actually inhibit Powdery Mildew in zinnias.

http://www.arcamax.com/gardening/s-1960-227172

Overhead sprinkling actually may reduce the spread of powdery mildew, because it washes spores off the plant. Also, if spores land in water, they die.

http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7493.html

"I especially like the reverse bicolor (lighter center)"

Me too. It is fairly easy to get white tips on the ends of the petals, but it is very rare to get white at the base of the petals. There are a lot of untapped bicolor and tricolor color patterns in zinnias, and finding them is an interesting challenge. I would like to get a whole strain of zinnias with white petal bases, like in the attached picture, but with various colors on the petal ends. That is going to take some doing. I was very surprised at the appearance of my red over white specimen. White petal ends are very common.

ZM