Hi weatherman,

I don't have the patience to wait years to see the results of my crosses, so my hobby is hybridizing zinnias. You can get more than one generation a year with them. However, your hobby has the potential of greater long term results, so I wish you every success with your endeavors. As I recall, Luther Burbank did some stone fruit hybridizing. (He also did some work with zinnias).

It may be too early now to tell much from pictures, but it might be interesting if you posted some pictures of your seedlings here in this forum. You can post pictures inline using the [img src="picture URL"] HTML command. I replaced the angle brackets (

{{gwi:19486}}
You can insert more than one picture inline in the same message. For examples of that, see the It can be fun to breed your own zinnias message thread in the Annuals forum.

ZM

Here us Seedling UBNC24--red leaf tree: Mariposa plum, seed parent, X Krauter Vesuvious plum, pollen parent.

*(Edit: Here us Seedling, Here's)

Seedling UBNA24---Olive green to purple foliage: Kruater Vesivious plum, Seed parent. Pollen Parent, probably a Moorpark apricot.

Here's my peach x almond hybrid. Seed parent: F1 nonpareil almond. Pollen parent: Elberta peach.

Hi, Weatherman,

Wow! Those are good pictures of your seedlings, and they show amazing variety. In particular, the peach x almond hybrid has long slender pointed leaves that are striking.

How long do you plan to keep your seedlings growing in pots? Do you have any way of knowing if they are getting root-bound?

Do you plan to take cuttings or grafts from them when they get larger? And, if grafts, what would you use for rootstock?

ZM

I'll probably keep them in pots for several reasons:

I don't have more space to plant them in the garden.

I'm also keeping them in pots because I'm young, in my 20s---living with my parents----so when I get my own house I will plant them in my own yard. That's why they are in pots right now.

I want the pots to dwarf them because I want to enjoy the fruit----I will cover them with bird netting----otherwise, if I plant them in the ground they will grow tall and the birds will get all the fruit.

; I don't think that they are root bound because I planted them all this year. So, I'm not worried about that issue right now. But yes, I will re-pot them into bigger pots in two or three years.

Yes, I will graft them, I'll graft them onto Marianna 2624, colt, and Krymsk 1 rootstocks.

Hi Weatherman,

The peach x almond hybrid looks like it might be happy in that pot for a couple more years. Maybe the same for seedling UBNC24. If the size of the above-ground growth is a good indicator for the below-ground growth, the UBNA24 seedling might be close to becoming root-bound next year.

Just out of curiosity, what is the scheme that you use to generate code-names for your seedlings? I just name my zinnia breeders with a single letter denoting the year (G=2013, next year will be H) followed by a number denoting the order in which the code was assigned. In other words, G13 was the 13th breeder that I designated this year. I suspect your code-names contain a bit more information than mine.

I keep a weatherproof, waterproof notebook with a page devoted to each coded breeder, including its lineage, planted date, and a description of the plant and its flowers. The military use notebooks of that sort in the field. My notebook spends quite a bit of time with me in the garden, occasionally exposed to showers or sprinklers, hence the need for waterproof pages.

ZM

"ubn" are my initials, and a,b, c, d I just chose them so could identify each seedling.

seedling "UBNC24" is way bigger now and in a new pot. I wanted to post a current picture but the computer says that it's too large to be posted on GB. I'll be naming this seedling either "Winter green" or "Chocolate Jewel".

and Seedling "UBNA24" I'll probably name it "Sweet fire"---I'll post a new picture tomorrow.

I'm keeping all the records stored in my three flashdrives---they are much safer.

Hi Weatherman,

"I wanted to post a current picture but the computer says that it's too large to be posted on GB."

I have Photoshop CS3 (an older version -- I think CS6 is current) and I could re-size the photo to something GardenWeb would accept. Photos that are somewhat over-sized get automatically downsized to 550 pixels wide by GardenWeb for display here. I guess yours must be really big to get rejected.

I usually downsize my photos to 550 pixels wide myself before posting them, because I think my downsizing is a little better than what GardenWeb does, although GW's downsizing seems to be of reasonable quality.

If you wanted, you could try emailing me the picture so I could downsize it to 550 pixels wide and email the 550-wide picture back to you so that you could post it. Or you could try resizing it yourself, using your graphical editor. I use Ben Vista's PhotoZoom Pro for resizing my pictures, up or down. I am still using version 4 of PhotoZoom Pro, although they are now up to version 5. They have a free demo, but it watermarks your re-sized images.

ZM
(not associated with any product or vendor mentioned or linked)

Here is
"UBNC24"

Here's
Seedling UBNA24-( krauter vusuvious x moorpark apricot)

Zenman,

Are you planning to patent your zennias? Will you release them to the public?

Hi, Weatherman,

I don't plan to patent any of my zinnias. So far, as far as I know, there aren't any patented strains of zinnias, because plant patents apply only to plants that are propagated asexually, There are patents on plants that can be propagated by seeds or asexually, but they don't apply to the seeds.

Zinnias aren't normally propagated by cuttings or by tissue culture, although both methods can be done. In past years I have rescued a few choice breeders from an impending killing frost by taking cuttings and growing the cuttings to maturity indoors, but I don't plan to do that this year. I do plan to grow a couple of zinnia generations indoors this Winter, to get an early start on my outdoor zinnias next year. I have a few choice hybrid zinnia seedlings up in pots now, although we still haven't had a killing frost yet here. I expect one before Halloween.

I have experimented with tissue culture of zinnias as a plant breeding technique, rather than as a method of commercial propagation. I plan to continue those experiments this Winter.

If and when I get some desirable zinnia strains that propagate faithfully from seeds, I might consider releasing them to a seed company for development as a commercial variety. There are a few seed companies that will pick up an amateur-developed strain and develop it for commercial introduction. I might consider that.

But my zinnia projects are highly variable at the present time, which is fun for me because I am always seeing new stuff. My hobby is strictly for fun and to "see what zinnias can do." Zinnias can do some weird and amazing stuff. I never really expected it to lead to any commercial results, and I still don't.

But I also never really expected to get some of the surprising results that I have gotten, so I don't know. It's hard to know the future, and I don't know where my zinnia projects will lead. But for the time being I am going to concentrate on having fun with my zinnias. Hobbies are meant to be fun. And I am having fun with zinnias. I am totally committed to the hobby for that reason only.

ZM

Did you know that Luther Burbank hybridized his plums with the "beach plum " because that breed can grow in one of the worst environments ( salty sand dunes ) . More power to you !
Did you know that the Almond nut and the nectarine are both just types of peaches and can be crossed with peaches , plums , prunes, apricots, and possible sand cherries and cherries . GOOD LUCK!

I didn't know that Burbank also crossed beach-plums with regular plums, interesting. He also crossed peaches with almonds, How fun.

Yup, I already knew that the Nectarine is just a fuzzless peach.

Next year I'll be crossing my plumcot (myrobalan plum x apricot) with a bing cherry, I'll call the hybrid pluerrycot.