Pink blizzard x Purple blizzard grow out results!!!!

Arlene,

Wow, that is the lightest one I have seen yet. Nice bloom! I`m going to take pictures every day and put them in a album to share a little later. The parent F1 had some light lavender phases to the blooms on the same vine with almost solid and blizzard flowers. This is fun to keep up with here. Thank you!

Karen

Here is my first bloom! A solid purple! Nice color! :-)

beckygardener, If you have time mark that flower with a string and follow the next bloom on the vine noting the color. See if it stays purple or turns increasingly blizzard. Some of mine start purple with maybe one tiny spot and then progress to have blizzard markings.

If your bloom stays consistently purple with no changes then it is possible there is a recessive gene for solid color in the mix. The blizzard is dominant and covers up the solid but the solid can come back if two blizzard vines carry for solid and the recessive genes for solid color combine in the seeds. You do need to do tagging to be sure the solid one isn`t just a dark phase of a blizzard pattern.

Thanks so much!

I`m going to go tag mine some more this morning. I use these little thin plastic tags with a hole cut with a hole puncher then I cut a slit in the side to the hole with the scissors. I write the information on the tag and carefully place it on the stem right below the flower.

I`ll be back later, Karen

Karen - I am planning on tagging them. I got 3 more blooms from the same vine. They were all solid purple. I would show you a photo, but we got blasted by some heavy rain last night and the blooms were plummeted. I did unfold and look at each bloom though to see if any blizzard was coming out on any of them. None. All looked just like the photo that I posted above. I looked at the other 4 vines and I am seeing some dark pink buds. So I imagine that vine will produce some of the pink blizzard strains.

How do you mark the tags? I have been taking a photo and then using masking tape with letters and a number such as SP1 (for solid purple - bloom 1). How do you mark them? Then I rename the photo with the same name. That way I can cross-reference them.

Here is a photo of several of the buds from at least 2 vines. The white is what was left of one of the solid purple blooms after the storm yesterday.

beckygardener, They can look solid and turn blizzard. The only way to know which ones started solid and turned progressively blizzard is to begin marking from the first flower. Otherwise you`ll see all these different patterns and the habit of the entire vine will not be known. You could have some that are for real solid(which is a recessive) and some that are blizzard and have no clue which is which after the fact.

Yes, you can develop your own sytem for the project if you are curious what each or just one vine produces to get to know them better. I use small square thin plastic tag cut to the size I need and a good quality thick line permanent marker will last long enough to tell what the habit of the vine is all about.

SPr1 SPr2

PrLB- light blizzard PrMB- medium blizzard PrHB- heavily blizzard

If you want to follow two vines then SPr1a and SPr1b vine a and vine b

Or you could figure some other way in time one method that works for you. Things like this can help you keep up with it and find out what happens.

This goes better if you can visit the vines every morning so you don`t miss anything. Good luck to those who have time. :)

It will be a good way to learn for future growing projects. Karen

This message was edited Sep 1, 2007 8:06 AM

Karen, great project and thread! Your efforts and those of the participants are to be applauded!!

...edited after writing to give the "long winded warning!"....

A little more info on the Blizzard gene. Every gene in a plant or animal (well, mostly...) come in pairs. When we say a gene is recessive we mean that both genes must be identical to be expressed. When a gene is called Dominant, and the gene pair is made up of a Dominant gene and a recessive gene, the Dominant gene will express itself over the recessive gene.

Like Karen stated, Blizzard is typically a Dominant gene. The recessive form of this gene allows the flower to remain normal, or solid in this case. Some of these Blizzard flowered plants could have only a single Blizzard gene, others could have both genes Blizzard. If the plant has one Blizzard gene and a recessive "solid" gene we call it heterozygous. This example plant would be called heterozygous for Blizzard. If both genes were Blizzard, we would call it homozygous for Blizzard.

A plant showing the Blizzard flower that is heterozygous for the Blizzard gene (only one present in the pair) could produce a solid plant from seed it produces. How could this be..? In the process of creating the pollen for the anther and the egg in the ovary, the pairs of genes get split up into singles. A pollen grain has only one copy of the gene and the egg has only one copy of the gene.....this way, when the egg is fertilized by a pollen grain, these single copies are re-paired up so that the plant will have two copies again. When a plant is heterozygous for a gene, having a copy of the Dominant form and the recessive form, the half of pollen produced could have the Dominant gene and the other half the recessive gene. the same thing goes for the eggs produced. When this plant is self fertilized, its own egs are fertilized by its own pollen. If this egg happens to have the recessive form of the Blizzard gene and the pollen happens to have the recessive form of the Blizzard gene, the resulting embryo will have a pair of recessive genes for Blizzard and produce a solid colored flower!

Becky, I know this was long winded, but that is how you could have a solid flower from Karen's selfed Blizzard flower! Now, Karen is also correct in that sometimes the Blizzard does not show up right away, but it usually gives us a hint by producing some flowers with light colored flecks... the Blizzard trait can be very variable. Ron has discussed this trait in detail in another thread...somewhere!

I use mini-blinds cut up to make my tags. I have found that writing on them with a soft lead pencil lasts many times longer that any permanent marker I have found. the ink always fades in the bright light, but the lead stays clear and readable..

Arlan

Thanks Karen for the labeling suggestions! I do need to run a colored string up each vine to be able to ID them! And I like how you are labeling each bloom. Sounds like a good plan!!

Arlan - Very cool explanation about recessive and dominate genes. I do understand what you are saying and I was not expecting my blooms to look a certain way. I knew that any combo could show up! Though I didn't know that sometimes the Blizzard doesn't show up on the first few flowers. That's interesting! I am not disappointed whatsoever! I haven't seen a MG bloom that I didn't like yet! LOL! I am just trying to document these for Karen in a way that will help her in this grow-out experiment. I'm a MG newbie! So I am learning as I go and I hope I am asking all the right questions.

I must confess ..... I've become a MG junkie! Gotta have my fix each day! LOL! Glad that y'all are enabling me! LOL! What a wonderful addiction!!!! :-)

Arlan, Thank you! It is great to hear from you again.

I feel like grilling you with questions but will restrain myself. Do you suppose a hidden gene for solid color could have been hiding in the F1 plant? If this is so then 1 of 4 of these flowers could be solid you think and 75 % would be blizzard (of those 1/3 homozygous and 2/3 of those heterozygous carrying for the solid color) What about that?

I have two vines with solid purple flowers with a white throat and marked them and will follow up on each to verify we have a solid color flower.

I`m fixing up some pictures andp lan on updating here in a little while. I`ll be back later.

Karen

This will refresh the memory on what the F1 plant looked like. It has a ray pattern. white throat and followed a blizzard pattern from almost solid to very light lavender with a purple ring around the outside of the white of the throat.

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/723601/

I have nine vines. 7 have bloomed.

2 pink blizzard
2 solid purple (following progression to make sure they are solid)
3 purple blizzard (one is lighter has a ray and also a lightening of the folds)

Here is a album I created and plan to update as time goes on.

Check these out. :)

http://picasaweb.google.com/gardenpics2007/20070824?authkey=mrVNMJ45XAE

Arlan,

Isn`t it neat to have a learning thread? I`m confused about the term recessive blizzard. Can the genes for solid cause the blizzard to be lost? It looks like the same with the youjiro white spokes I experimented with. They either have white spokes or they don`t.

These particular ones could either be blizzard or they arent. If this is so then the solid flowers will not throw blizzard. Blizzard flowers that are crossed with solids will produce a greater number of blizzard flowers and fewer solid flowers because they carry for the recessive gene making the flowers solid. But the solid flower will not produce blizzard flowers. The solid flower is recessive and breeds true unless a gene coming from another kind of flower such as a blizzard or a spoked flower is dominant in expression.

But if the flower has two recessive blizzard making it solid then what will happen when it reproduces? Will it throw more solid or blizzard? Is recessive blizzard recessive to a more dominate blizzard? Would two recessive blizzard genes making a solid flower as was mentioned already only act with another dominate blizzard being present based on that statement and other wise do nothing exept result in the flower being solid? This kid of inheritance would explain the many interesting variatons that can be found in ipomea nils.

In the few experiments I have done it appears the Medelian Laws do ring a bell. I selfed a blizzard spoked flower that was F1 cross between a blizzard large flower and a spoked youjiro flower. The offspring were running the gamut in combinations. I chose a blizzard spoked flower and the F3 turned out to be blizzard spoked,solid spoked(looked like a normal youjiro-hello again) and blizzard with no spokes. It appears they go back to previous forms without continued selection and growing over many generations and at times you may have to do the first cross again if you loose the traits you want to keep.

Would a solid flower coming from a blizzard breed only solid colors from selfed pods?

This could be a second experiment to test and see if this solid flower will breed true when selfed.

Karen




This message was edited Sep 1, 2007 5:52 PM

Karen this is the first bud getting ready to bloom on the 2nd MG vine. (I only have 3 vines as one broke off and never grew).

Here's a photo of the bloom this morning.

One more photo of the same bloom as it opened up more.

My 2 solid purple are staying solid and not turning blizzard so it looks like solid it probably is and it won`t surprise me to see solid pink ones. I`m watching one that has a ray pattern with the blizzard and another has a lightening of the folds.

Thanks to anyone donating answers, insight and advise especially to Arlan.

Any questions going unaswered or we are not sure about it yet will be answered in time with enough dogged persitence and experimentation. :)

beckygardener, Thanks for more nice pictures. You doing a great job! Your three charges are in good hands and you seem to be a good plant Mom.

I will update again later.... bye/bye

Karen

This is my first one to bloom.

~Lucy

Wow, another solid purple. Mark that vine purple and tie a yarn and follow it to make sure it doesn`t begin to show blizzard. It`s pretty! We need to figure out a way to do a count of numbers of blooms in each category. There are over 100 seeds distributed. This may prove to be interesting. :)

Ok. Down in the left bottom corner of that flower, you can see red in the creases, that was kind wierd. : )
~Lucy

Lucy - Mine looked very similar to yours and so far I have had 4 solid reddish-purple blooms that looked the same on my first vine.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/fp.php?pid=3924416
Mine, also, had the reddish purple color in the creases too!

Has anyone produced any pink colored mg blooms?

I think some of that is normal and caused by moisture collecting in the folds. It might have to do with the moisture in the air. There is one crape myrtle growing over some of mine. The water dripping off the tree onto the flowers make these bright magenta splotches but it probably nothing to get exited about though it looks neat sometimes.

Karen

2 out of 7 so far of mine are pink. 2 of 7 are solid purple. 3 of 7 are purple blizzard. We will need results from about 30 flower vines to get a look at what traits are possible. One of the purple blizzard does have a lighter pinkish/purple tinge to it.

We need more at least 30 from complete grow outs to get a percentage of possibilities.



This message was edited Sep 2, 2007 8:21 PM

beckygardener,

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/fp.php?pid=3924416

This is showing the lightening of color in the folds like I`m seeing on one of my purple blizzard flowers.

Pretty neat. :)

This one favors the F1 the most. This will probably increase in markings as the vine matures. We will see later. I`m still waiting on 2 other vines.

This is the lighter colored purple with the lightening in the folds. It has the red spots but I see this phenomenon on so many of all the different kinds I`m growing that I think it is a normal occurance probably related to the weather.

Those are both beautiful blooms, Karen!

I think that you are probably correct about the weather discoloring the flower petals. I also see this on many different blooms that I am growing.

Hi all, I must say that I am really enjoying all the blooms shared here! Unless one had very specific goals in mind...I'd dare venture we would all grow each one again...on their own merits! Great parentage!

Karen, you had some questions about the term "recessive Blizzard" and asked if a plant with solid flowers from a Blizzard breed would produce only solid flowers if selfed.

"recessive Blizzard" is an unfortunate term I used that caused the confusion. I will attempt to explain the concept I was thinking about when I wrote that! Please bear with me, as I am usually more comfortable just thinking about these things than writing about them.....

Let me start with some basic concepts that may be very familiar with some, and relatively new to others. The wild Japanese Morning Glory, Ipomoea nil, has 15 pairs of chromosomes, sometimes stated as 2n=30. Each of the individual chromosomes is made up of strands of DNA which carry the genetic information. This DNA is in long strands and different sections along each strand have different functions in the complicated chemical processes of life. Simplified, these individual sections on the strand of DNA are called genes.

A normal, wild type, Japanese Morning Glory has a solid blue flower. When we have a pink flower, there is a matching section on both copies of chromosome number 4 that changes the ability to produce the wild type, blue, and instead produces a pink flower. This section of the chormosome is labeled, mg, meaning magenta. If only one of this chromosome 4 pair has this modified DNA (mutant) and the other has the normal, wild type DNA, the flower will be blue, but heterozygous (split) for mg. Sometimes you will see the notation mg/mg to designate the homozygous state and mg/+ for the heterozygous state, the + meaning wild type.

Now Blizzard (Bz) is typically considered dominant (3 of the 4 different Blizzard genes identified so far are dominant), and a plant with Bz/Bz or Bz/+ will be Blizzard. A plant that has the wild type (normal) DNA at the specific Blizzard site on both chromosomes (+/+) will be normal, and in this case will produce normal solid flowers. When I used the term "recessive Blizard" in the earlier post, I meant, and should have stated more clearly, the wild type gene at the Blizzard site on the chromosome (which is technically recessive to the dominant Blizzard mutation).

From the above information, we can then answer the other question by stating that a solid flower, even if it came from a dominant Blizzard plant, will only produce solid flowers if selfed as it only has wild type DNA at the dominant Blizzard site. If we get a solid flowering plant from seed of a dominant Blizzard flowering plant, we can reason that the Blizzard plant is heterozygous for Bz, or Bz/+. If a dominant Blizzard plant only produces Blizzard plants from it's seed when selfed, we can reason that it is homozygous for Bz, or Bz/Bz.

Now, remember that this is simplified as I have only been talking about a single blizzard gene. A plant could theoretically have multiple blizzard genes in play. I have not been able to find any information on the different blizzard genes and if they act differently. I often wonder if the gene that causes the snowflake type blizzard is different from the gene that causes the the striped flower....just adds to the fun!

Hope this helps, and doesn't muddy the waters further!

Arlan

Did ya'll see Arlans post fly right over my head? lol : )
I wish I was smart like that. *sigh*
I'll just grow them. : )
~Lucy

Arlan, Thanks so much. I do understand. If we knew it all then this grow out would not be as much fun would it? The mystery of the unknown factors only adds to the suspense waiting for blooms and adds to the wonder of these flowers. :)

This morning I was greeted at the door by a beautiful surprise! Both vines were blooming up a storm!

This is the vine with the solid purple blooms.

This message was edited Sep 3, 2007 8:41 AM

And here is the Blizzard patterned blooms on the other side of the container!
SO BEAUTIFUL!!!

And here is a wider view of the container that is sitting right outside my front door! :-)

Happy Labor Day!

One more of all the Blizzard blooms.

beckygardener,

They do like the teepee arrangement in a sunny spot. Those purple blizzard favor the F1 parent. They will likely progress to a very light lavender with a circle of purple around the white throat. You have very nice results and what a beautiful garden area! That is fine looking. Thanks for sharing your pictures.

Happy Labor Day!!!

Karen

Those are beautiful, Becky. : ) I have another solid purple just like yesterday, from the same vine.

~Lucy

Gorgeous flowers everyone. Love the solids as well as the blizzards

Jackie

Finally got a solid pink. Here are a few from today.
Arlene

Another.

Another

Last one.

Ohhh, I'm so jealous. I have a few buds on mine... just waiting for them to open then I can post some pictures too.

Maybe another day or two and I'll be able to join the club.

cattjovi,
I love the light one with the pink ring around the center. Is that the same vine as the lavender with purple markings you posted on August 29?