This is why I`m going to hand pollinate Everything this year

Well, here is a grow out from open pollinated seeds I picked off my pink yagurumas. They were growing by themselves 30 feet or more away from all the others and you see already I have a little "interloper" appearing. I actually like it. I dug it up and moved it away from the others. That is the first bloom. I`m glad I traded these as "open pollinated" and as a mixture. My feelings were right that it was possible they would show color variants and changes due to cross pollination...especially being a recessive color pink.

On the up side the leaves are greener,thicker and healthier looking and appear more resistant to the rust.

I have some hand pollinated yagurumas on the way being tested so we will see if that method produces desired results. Then I will have to tie blooms on those for sure to get true seeds.

This is the original pink yagurumas:

Now, here is the variation showing up in the open pollinated batch I test grew. All the seeds came off the yaguruma plants I grew by themselves 30 feet away from all the others. I`m glad I traded these as "open pollinated" mixture possibly showing color variants. I had a feeling the bees would do their jobs and some of the flowers would look different. This is the way you learn.

I think I want the stronger,healthier foilage but the pink youjiro is what I wanted. I will have to wait and see if I get a pink youjiro bloom,mark the vine and get some hand pollinated pods to grow out. Then I might have something nice that will grow out true and do good in my garden. Still, I will always have to be sure and get hand pollinated pods to ensure true seeds in the follwing generations of plantings. I`m now thinking the open seeds might either need to be shared as open pollinated mixtures or discarded.

Thank goodness I got some hand pollinated pods off these. I`m test growing the hand pollinated ones too. They are budding out and not blooming yet. I`ll surely have to hand pollinate as many as I can for true seeds.

I`ll update more later as my experiments bring more information to light.

This message was edited May 5, 2007 11:35 AM

Karen, Love the pink yagurumas. Can't wait to see what you get from the hand pollinated flowers.
Jackie

I`ll be back later and share results of the hand pollinated yaguruma seeds. Hopefully they will turn out the lovely bright pink flowers. They really should come out true because I was careful in tying and protecting them. I`ll update later on.

Really Nice Paul

Gardener, I applaud your honesty. If I had my way I would make it illegal to gift dubious identity seeds to anyone. We have probably all been stung that way.

Gardening is too much work and expense to have to grow it out to see if you got what you payed for. Thank you for having a higher standard than ebay.

Cyberspace is a frontier, and there are no laws in that territory it seems. You can use 50 names if you want, and 50 people can use the same name if they want to.

We all need to adopt this credo of yours; hand pollinated or open pollinated. That information tells so much

Frank

I`ll never pass off open pollinated seeds as 100% dependable. If I ever trade open pollinated seeds I always say so. Some varieties seem to have a higher rate of selfing but you cannot depend on that. You can tell people where they came from as far as the parents but you cannot guarantee open pollinated seeds to grow out 100% true.

It takes work to get true seeds and from now on I`m planning on seeing if I can do that very thing. I took a peek and I see the bright pink on the other flowers. So, I feel encouraged that I`m going to get some true seeds from these.

Karen, I'm attracted to the foliage shown here: http://davesgarden.com/forums/p.php?pid=3465554

Is it truly the yellow color as opposed to the dark green? That color flower looks good against it!

Let's all remember that just because a flower is hand pollinated to self does not insure that the results will be identical to the parent. There can be unexpressed recessives still present that can and will show up! The good news is that if careful selection is made each generation, the odds of these recessives showing up decreases. That is why it is so important to control the pollination like you are, Karen, once a a strain is stabilized. I applaud your efforts! I just wish I had more time at home to do likewise!

You have some great projects going! Keep us updated! - Arlan

I agree Arlan, That hidden recesive thing is the reason I plan to do test gowing and rogue removal for quality control. :)

The hand pollination ensures the flower has the right parents and not parents selected by the bees. Then you still have to test them out and rogue out anything not fitting the standards.

I want to add the leaves are light. They are not dark green but they are not the light yellow/green either. I suspect all these flowers are not homozyous for the ray white. I suspect some of them carry for solid so I`ll be looking out for and removing any solid flowers so as you say over time there will be more uniformity and less surprises showing up.

This message was edited May 8, 2007 3:43 PM

If you care to save seed from this yellow leaved yaguruma plant, I would be interested is some! - Arlan

It looks like both the open pollinated batch and the hand pollinated batch have the uniformly colored light green color. It is not the very light yellow green but lighter green than the dark green. I`m going to let them bloom for ID purposes and then once the vine is tagged with the bloom color characteristics I can begin tying the blooms. I`ll be happy to share these. They make tons of seeds so I`ll have plenty!

It looks like the interloper is a blue colored ray white. I suspect it is crossed with my blue youjiros. I want to grow these out and work with them. Meanwhile,the pink ones will have to be hand pollinated(like everything else) and test grown.

Edited to add: Also,the results of the hand pollinated yagurumas were 100% conformity to the parents. I did not make that clear.



This message was edited Mar 9, 2009 7:46 PM