Unlike daylilies it does not matter if your hostas are tets or dips.

Keep in mind that solid colored hostas will only produce solid colored seedlings. Variegated hostas could produce a variegated or even a streaked seedling. However the odds are not in your favor. Streaked plants are the best bet to get variegated seedling but all streakers are not created equal. Check out www.hostaseedgrowers.com. Many of the better known streaked plants are rated on a scale from 1 to 5 with 5 being the best. It can help keep you from wasting time and money on plants that are not the best moms.

Have fun!

I don't have any streaked ones but did buy some variegated ones. It's worth a try. Thanks for the link. Marg

Get a streaker for future work........you will enjoy getting the variegated/streaked seedlings. The streaking is unstable................so get the best streaked individual you can............as that will also more likely produce variegated seedlings. Once you see some streakers in person that will make more sense. E.g. you could have a batch of three pots of Hosta 'Fascination" to choose from. All are the cultivar 'Fascination'. Maybe one would have good, multicolor streaking over the entire leaf, every leaf of the plant. Once may have reverted to mostly green with a couple stripes of lighter color on three or four leaves. One might have good streaking on half the plant, the other half green. The first would be your best choice to buy, the last almost worthless. The middle one might give you streaked seedlings or not......most likely it would produce some good eyes on the streaked side in the future and the green side would be culled off. More confused? LOL!

at the hosta library.. on each page of a given hosta ..... there is a link to myhosta.net ...

therein.. you should be able to find tetra status ... etc ...

as you probably know from DL... IMHO... the biggest thing to have.. when hybridizing.. IS A GOAL ... so you can throw out the 50 million that dont attain said goal ...

e.g. .... if you desire a small gold ruffled plant ... then you can throw out the 99% green plants you get ...

bob of said library.. also has a link on the library home page.. to his insane seed growing .... its right there in the middle-right under... wait for it.. SEED GROWING ... lol ...

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: in case you didnt know what i was talking about ...

Thanks for the information guys. Now I'm off to find a good streaker. Every time I hear that word I remember when I was a kid and I came home from school one day and the neighbor was sitting in the kitchen crying. She had taken her kids shopping and they had witnessed 2 'streaker' running across the department store! At least her kids thought it was funny.

I grew streaker seedlings now for 2 winters from seeds, got those seeds for free. Thereafter I found out that you can buy seeds on web sites and auctions. Only one of my 4 seed pod parents are on that Streaker Breeder List in the Hosta Library (go to Hosta Library.org, then to box 'Lists', etc.), is 'Dorothy Benedict' with *****. But I had fun. 2 of the 2nd year seedlings now are blooming, and I am dabbing them with pollen from large blues to see, if I can get a large blue streaker. It is new to me to collect pollen at night, let it dry and become fluffy over night and open up for next morning's dabbing. Etc.,etc. It certainly is fun. This winter I will see how good my choice of plants was.

I have to add that you will get a headstart by buying and reading the Hybridizer's Manual which Don Rawson sells at cost for $25 on the Hosta Library Auction. He has writeups about hybridizing from many hosta hybridizers in this manual. Good luck!

Bernd

This post was edited by berndnyz5 on Tue, Jul 9, 13 at 16:55

Also on the Don Rawson Lists there is one for the Polyploids.
I give you the link to that below, which is hosted at the Rested Dog Inn web site.

You'll have to scroll and look for the list, because there are many lists (including my favorite one, Fragrant Flowered Hosta).

So enjoy, and good luck.

Here is a link that might be useful: Don Rawson's Hosta Lists

I know nothing about breeding daylilies, which everybody seems to do. But I'm going to disagree a bit with Tim. While crossing diploid and tetraploid or polyploid Hostas are certainly possible, it is complicated by the ploidy. That is to say it's not easy.

It's hard to know what Hostas are polyploid and what layers of the Hosta are and aren't. For example, a Hosta that is 4-4-4 is fully tetraploid in all three layers. A Hosta that is 4-2-4 is mostly tetraploid but is diploid in the L2 layer. As a result some Hostas will not accept pollen from others. The only way to determine this is to try them.

Last year I tried all different kinds of pollen on Mirror, Mirror (which I think is fully tet) to no avail. This year I selfed it and got several pods. IMO, this is an example of a plant that is difficult to set pods due to its ploidy.

Steve

....yeah, what Steve said.

Well, that is what makes the list done up by Don Rawson on the known ploidy of some hosta, important. So if you wish to hybridize, taking a close look at that list, linked above, is a good idea.

There are two lists which may be helpful regarding hosta ploidy. One list is titled Polyploid Hostas. This is a list of the many cultivars which are commonly assumed to be polyploid (i.e., more than diploid). However, not all cultivars which are often thought to be polyploidy necessarily are. For example, 'Blue Mouse Ears' was originally thought to be tetraploid. Testing conducted by Dr. Ben Zonneveld using flow cytometry concluded that BME was merely diploid.

The other list titled Hostas Analyzed by Flow Cytometry is probably a more reliable indicator of the ploidy because this is a list of hostas of cultivars which have been tested. (Please note: there is some debate on whether the method of flow cytometry is a suitable method for determining ploidy.)

It should be noted that hostas most commonly are diploid...i.e., they have two sets of chromosomes. Some, however, have three sets (triploid), four sets (tetraploid), or even six sets (hexaploid). Others may have a combination of ploidy (as Steve said)...diploid in some layers, while triploid or tetraploid or hexaploid in other layers. This condition is referred to as a "ploidy chimera".

And lastly, a few cultivars may be missing some chromosomes in one or more layers. These are referred to as aneuploids.

This is probably a lot more information than what you really need to know. Diploids, triploids, tetraploids, and aneuploids can all be cross-pollinated with each other...and there is no definitive answer to what the ploidy of the offspring will be. Generally, however, the pollen sacs on tetraploids are much larger than those on diploids, making them more difficult (but not impossible) to use for cross pollinating with other cultivars.

So if I were to use Rhino Hide/ (4-4-4 or 4-2-2 depending where you look) as pollen donor on a diploid... I could expect trouble the pollen will take? And then I also remember something about certain crosses causing the offspring to be sterile? I believe it is tetra to diploid? Would tetra to tetra crosses be sterile, as well? Not looking to the hijack the thread, this looked as good as a place as any to further elaborate on the topic :)

Rhino Hide was check by Dr. Ben Zonneveld using flow cytometry and was determined to be partially tetraploid (4-2-2). The second layer which forms the seed is diploid. Rhino Hide is fertile as a pod and pollen parent and readily crosses with other species and cultivars.

"And then I also remember something about certain crosses causing the offspring to be sterile? I believe it is tetra to diploid? Would tetra to tetra crosses be sterile, as well?"

I haven't heard of any evidence which would support that crossing tetraploids with diploids produces sterile offspring, or crossing tetraploids with tetraploids. Although tetraploids sometimes produce viable seed, there are many more sports of tetraploids named and registered than there are offspring.

One obstacle in researching information such as this is that there are a very limited number of hostas which have been checked by flow cytometry. So it is currently difficult to make any assertive statements about crossing tetraploids with diploids, etc., until the ploidy of more cultivars has been researched and determined.