Keep your seedlings away from other roses and don't spray unless you need to--ie, don't fix it if it aint broke. Don't presume you need to spray. Try to keep them in a dry area. This will give you a chance to see how resistant they really are. Are their parents more or less prone?

Catsrose, my reasoning for spraying is to prevent bs. In my experience more roses get bs than don't, and once you see it that leaf is a goner. Since the plants are small, I wanted to avoid losing any leaves at all. So I guess I do presume it's pretty likely they'll get some bs. Your advice to keep them dry and away from other roses might do some good, but once I put them outside it'll be hard to isolate them from other roses as roses are around all sides of my house.

Some of the parent plants are bs resistant but these are open pollinated seeds so I don't know what one of the parents is on each of these. Thanks for your opinion.

Linda

Hello erasmus,
You wrote: "my reasoning for spraying is to prevent bs."

I "DO NOT" spray my seedlings in their first few months at all!
Btw, Blackspot is not (for me) the first to attack the young seedlings. Mildew is, and when a new seedling is covered in mildew I "do not" even wait for the 1st bloom and it goes "OUT"

Blackspot (in my yard!) will appear later in the fall when seedlings are growing outside. Then again, any with lots of blackspot go into the trash. Of course that's when you have hundreds or thousands of seedlings to raise.

When I started hybridizing in 1969 and had only a few dz. seedlings to raise I would keep them all and even sprayed for mildew !
Read my article : "25 Years of Breeding for Disease Resistance"
Link below.
George Mander

Here is a link that might be useful: 25 Years of Breeding for Disease Resistance

George,
Thanks for your reply. I read the link and found it interesting. In trying to learn about raising seedlings I had read some of your articles already. I think it's great that you have made such an effort to breed disease resistant plants. Sounds like you're going to take a wait and see approach next, and just get rid of the most disease prone.

For me, this is my first batch of seedlings and I don't want to get rid of any yet. So far I haven't seen any mildew, but then mildew is not a big problem in my garden either here. I am willing to raise a seedling that gets some bs because I grow plenty of roses that need spraying and I feel ok about spraying for now. I'll probably try hybridizing this spring. Maybe with more experience I'll get tougher about getting rid of seedlings. Once I see how these grow and bloom I'll probably get rid of a few.

I talked to Vernon Rickard (Almost Heaven Roses) and he also doesn't spray his seedlings. So I guess I'll try to be brave.

By the way, I have a second big bag of seeds in my fridge that have been there since early Dec. Not much is germinating in the fridge...should I go ahead and plant them? I've been taking them out of the fridge for short warm up spells to see if that would encourage them to sprout.
Thanks,
Linda

Hi Linda,

I would take them "ALL" out of the fridge and plant them now.
Best temperature for germinating is about 65 to 70 F. and keep them where it does not get to warm.
For me rose seeds stop germinating when the temp comes close to 80 F.
There is another interesting article on my Article Page.
Link below.
George

Here is a link that might be useful: A Germination Explosion

George, that's a fascinating account of your experiments and I plan to print it out. It's a little worrisome that out of that many seedlings you only ended up keeping a few. I don't have anything like that many seedlings to hope for a good one from. I do have some interesting seed mothers.

Did your June Laver seeds mostly turn out to be mini's? I enjoyed hearing about how you hauled your seed tubs in and out and had to rig up so many lights and had to try to slow down germination! I will hang on to my seed trays and see if more germinate later.
thanks,
Linda

Hi Linda,
June Laver has a yell. HT (Helmut Schmidt) as pollen parent.
My "Rubies'n'Pearls" also has an HT (MANpurple, my own) for pollen parent.

About 70 to 80 percent were minis, but I also got some HT's Fl. and now so-called Mini-Floras out as well.

NOTE : I got more than just a few at the time ! If you go to my "Rose List" at HMF you will see a lot. But from the 1995 batch, I got about 15 registered.

Here is a link that might be useful: Mander Roses at HelpMeFind

George,
I looked at your photos and list at hmf...very impressive. You said something in one of those links about getting a few good ones but it must have been out of one batch or something. I am glad you have had such good results overall. It's neat you named one after BUffy St. Marie. My first wish is to name one after my mom and dad.

I got most of the rest of my seeds planted so I'll have my fingers crossed for them. It's good information to see which plants seem to have the best germination rates.

Thanks,
Linda