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sunflowers
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Posted by Brian NY - 5 (bd_moore@hotmail.com) on Thu, Mar 1, 01 at 20:45
Does anyone on here do any work with sunflower hybridizing? I was just wondering, why there has never been a giant sized red sunflower? All giant sunflowers (skyscraper, russian giant, paul bunyon hybrid, mammoth russian, titan, giant yellow, giant single, etc.)are yellow and single headed, with the exception of the multi-headed kong hybrid (and I read that Sunzilla can be either multi or single headed). There are lots of red sunflowers, but all are multi-headed and medium sized (velvet queen, red sun, evening sun, crimson thriller, prado red, etc.)
I would like to see a giant red sunflower!
I've bought every giant sunflower variety that I could find and every red variety I could find. Hopefully something good will come of this.
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: sunflowers
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Hi Brian, I really like your idea for a giant sized red sunflower! Sounds like you have created a good gene pool to work with towards this goal. If you are successful, I imagine it will take generations of crosses to stabilize this hybrid until it breeds true from seed. An ambitious project, but I think the end result would be very popular. Good luck! John
RE: sunflowers
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If I can make a giant red sunflower then I'm going to need a catchy name for it. They always have catchy names for sunflowers. I could name it something like Giant Red, Mammoth Red, or Big Red. ...Hrmmm? What should I call it?
RE: sunflowers
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Unfortunately the best name of all is not only taken, but has been wasted: 'VALENTINE'. It is not even red. How about 'Jolly Red Giant'? Did a little more research, and was surprised to note that the Sunflower, Helianthus annus, is in the Aster family (Asteraceae). The author lists many members of this family because of "all the interesting wide cross possibilities". There is nothing further on this, but among the plants listed are Dahlias! Would a wide cross between Helianthus and Dahlia be possible? There are certainly some huge dark red Dahlias. And then if the cross could be propagated by tubers... John
RE: sunflowers
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Most hybridizing in this area ( I believe) is one
sided ,what I mean is that they have been either crossing for size or color .
RE: sunflowers
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| LET ME KNOW how you make out I am looking for gian heads to crossbreed with. and all posssible colors petal types . lets swap seeds next fall I once had ten diffferent colors but most were small and mice ate them. |
RE: sunflowers
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| helpful hints tips on growing tall sunflowers, and giant heads |
RE: sunflowers
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Brian
At one time I was a professional sunflower breeder. I was working on the perennial Helianthus species, but breeding methods are much the same.
Just cross a red one with a giant one. Grow out lots of seeds. They should have yellow flowers. Save seeds again, and grow them out. Some should be red, and bigger than what you started with.
If my memory is wrong, and the red does show up in the first generation, then it will be easier. Just cross red-flowered sunfloewrs back to the large-flowered variety every time you get the red.
Do not use a commercial F1 hybrid sunflower for crossing, at least not as the seed parent. Those commercial hybrids are made using a male-sterile strain as the female parent of the hybrid. Those genes may mess you up later.
So cross the red hybrids with the large headed variety again. Again you will have yellow so grow out another generation from them. Some should be red again.
As soon as you get some red sunflowers that are pretty big, you can stop backcrossing, which is what this system is called, and start selecting in the population for bigger flowered reds.
With 2 years per backcross, it will take a while, but much of the size change will be early, as some of the size is due to the sunflower putting all its energy into one flower head instead of many smaller flower heads. And that is due mostly to one gene.
You can choose to stop backcrossing to the big variety when you want to.
It is important to grow seeds from more than one plant in each generation. Many sunflowers are self-incompatible. That means each plant needs pollen from a different plant to set seeds. As few as 6 plants per generation is risky, because closely related plants may not be recognised as different plants.
If you only have one red hybrid in a generation in which you had planned to backcross to the large variety, no problem. Mix the pollen from several large flowered plants and use it on the one red one, and use the one red flower's pollen on several large flowered plants.
Sunflower's pollen will keep for a few weeks, if kept dry. Water kills it on contact.
Sunflowers have never been successfully crossed with anything except other sunflowers. Crosses between some species of sunflowers are really dificult. Some have never been successful. And yes, they have been tried in all combinations. Dr. Heiser, for one, made crosses in all possible combinations to see which would cross and which wouldn't. The annual domestic species will cross easily with some wild annual species. It will cross with some difficulty with some perennial species, Jerusalem artichoke being one.
Good luck and have fun.
Walter |
RE: sunflowers
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| YOU CAN GET "FREE" SEEDS including sun flower seeds from the U.S. government by agreeing to fill out an evaluation of each seed requested at the end of the harvesting season . check out www.ars-grin.gov this includes rare colrs like "purple" good luck ! |
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