Is you objective a spineless plant? The colors are very common in bromeliads. The confirmation is good. And yes a nice photo. good job.

Hi Allan,
It's always interesting to look at new seedlings and see what others are doing. Your plants are quite eye catching and I imagine those colours would be very easy to sell.

Are you breeding as a hobby with the only object being to make a colourful smooth leaved plant or are you commercial and intend selling the results at markets, nurseries etc.?

Thanks for showing us your babies, please keep showing future results.

All the best, Nev.

I recognize that match book. Where have I seen that on a brom before?

Hi HDD, yes the colors are nothing out of the ordinary though the F2 will be dramatic as well as spineless which is what I want.
Splinter1804, I am doing this as a hobby, though my goals are based on commercial qualities, spineless is desirable, as well as large wide colored centers, if these plants are grown under similar conditions to what most of you are using? you will find that they will be much more compact growing, as well as have intense foliage colour.
These seedlings will not be named or released as a sale plant, only kept for producing seed, which I will make available later on.

I have been breeding bromeliads for over 30 years and it is very easy to create some thing different, though to be able to guarantee the out come of a progeny? is a little more difficult and that is what I like doing. regards alan

Allan, I'm not quite sure whether you're asking qustions or making statements, but you sound fairly confident that the F2 generation will produce traits not seen in the F1 seedlings. Can you elaborate on this? Have you done many sibling or self crossings and carried them out several generations? If so, I'd be interested in hearing what you've learned from it.

And lets see more of your creations

'Onya Allan!

How about also showing us those neos/neomeas where you suspect Aechmea fasciata has jumped the fence somehow?

Cheers,
Kerry

Hi All, was not on the forum yesterday, before answering some of these questions, must state the main reason for showing these seedlings? was for some of the forum members who currently buy seed and/or seedlings off me, to give them an idea of what I am referring to when I say this F2 parents? also for others who may be just curious to see seedlings?

Bromadams, that match box is some thing out of your childhood, and I only used it to trigger in you a warm fuzzy feeling??? did it work? lol

Lisaclv, yes I have done lots of F2 crosses though do not have images of seedlings as computers were a little primitive years ago, the same with cameras, though the out comes of those crosses showed me what I felt was the case and now use this knowledge to create new stock depending on what I feel the market would want??

This type of breeding relies on several assumptions? ie That bromeliad breeding obeys Mendelian Genetics? that the characteristics I want to combine in the new plants are recessive and hence will not show in the F1 generation (though often find that the genetics involves incomplete dominance and hence partial appearance is obvious like in these seedlings), also that most of the characteristics I want to observe are the result of a single gene interaction and that to get a desired result? it is based on probability hence I need to produce large numbers of seedlings in order to produce plants which will exhibit multiple recessive pure breeding traits.

most of my breeding of F2 plants, was done on species to create the F1 and hence the outcomes were more obvious,
example Neo.fireball x Neo compacta = F1 seedlings from both parents looked similar though seedlings off N. compacta were
red in color though smaller than N.compacta while the seedlings off the N. fireball were larger than N. fireball also red though smaller than the seedlings from the reverse cross. this is an example of female dominance. The F2 of this cross produced a range of plants from N. fireball to Neo compacta with small plants looking like compacta ie green though the size of N.fireball and large plants with the colour of N.fireball just one example of this type of breeding.
Also I did a lot of back breeding of the seedlings with Neo. fireball with Neo fireball as I wanted to see if I could produce Neo fireball with variegation ie if you do up to 1000 seedlings usually 1 good clear variegation will appear ? though never got that result though I am told some of these seedlings are still in circulation?

F2 breeding with hybrids is a much more unpredictable process, unless you know the lineage of the parents and I am quite aware of the Neo., meyendorfii breeding as I did up to 5 generations of selection and back crossing years ago with this group, from which N. medusa come from?, though as Kerry points out I found that some of the qualities of Neo medusa are more likely to have come from a bi generic cross with a thornless clone of Aechmea facsiata.

The following images come from a cross of Neo., Lila X Neo., Medusa and approx 10 to 20% of the seedlings showed this feature;

{{gwi:450318}}

also many seedlings showed the silver scaling of Aechmea fasciata;
{{gwi:450319}}
Both Noe medusa and Neo Lila do not show silver scaling also they produce typical neo flowers though these seedlings are obviously showing some thing that I would assume is recessive and makes sense as Neo medusa is very prone to Phytophera fungus, which to me implies unstable genetics.
If any one wants to find out more on this subject then ask for my phone number and you can talk direct with me as I am getting RSI explaining this breeding.................. :o)

Alan, I'll run into that match box some day. It was definately sitting on a brom in the bromdex. I seem to remember a gnome in a related pic too.

Anyway, Mendel's laws are not actually laws since he didn't know about gene linkage. Still, it does work most of the time.

Here is a link that might be useful: Gene Linkage

Hi Bromadam and all,
Thank you for the link to the Mendel page,
I some times wonder how universal a matchbox is, when viewed by people from different countries??
best regards Alan..................... :o)