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luxrosa

How can I tell if a rose cultivar or species is fertile?

luxrosa
12 years ago

If a rosebush sets hips, does this indicate fertility for both its' seeds and pollen?

Example: "Lady Hillingdon" sets hundreds of hips in autumn, does this mean that it would be a good seed parent?

and a good pollen parent?

Is there a grand list of fertile rose species and cultivars?

My dream and desire is to hybridize a:

- flame colored Tea-Pernetiana (by crossing Lady Hillingdon or Clemintina Carbonieri or "Rosette Delizy" with President Herbert Hoover" or "Mari Dot" with the objective of producing a smaller H.T. type plant that has the constant bloom over a longer season, of a Tea rosebush.

Thank you ever so much,

Luxrosa

Comments (2)

  • roseseek
    12 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Yes, and no. The "grand list" comes with a premium membership on Help Me Find. It permits you to look up the breeding and offspring of any cultivar listed on the site.
    WELL worth the annual cost. If you click on "lineage" tab at the top of the rose page, it will show you any information there about what created that rose. To the right top of the page, there is a tab which permits you to view all offspring listed for the cultivar (or species). This will allow you to see whether the rose has been used primarily for seed or pollen, or both, which can give you an indication of what might be the best way for you to use it. If no offspring are listed, it only means either no one has used it or they haven't shared the information.

    The alternative would be to try germinating seeds from all of your roses to see what comes up easily. Hip formation doesn't necessarily mean anything. Irish Elegance set hips like mad in my old garden, but NOTHING ever came up from any seed I planted from it. Some roses are fertile seed setters, some are totally infertile. The same goes for pollen. Tigris seems self infertile, as does R. Minutifolia. Pollinating Tigris with other pollen has resulted in a number of hybrids. Ralph Moore's Little Chief is extremely picky about what pollen it accepts, while its pollen will work on many roses.

    It's either try each rose you're considering; buy old volumes of Modern Roses and look up what might be there or buy a premium membership to HMF which is the easiest and most dynamic resource you can have.

    With any luck, you'll find some of the crosses you're considering have already been made and might even be available to you somewhere. Being able to "stand on the shoulders of those who've gone before" can save you a ton of time and work. Being able to see how well crosses you're considering turned out can also give you clues whether that's the direction you really want to go, also.

    Something you might consider, going back and crossing roses created many decades ago will put you smack in the middle of the disease and performance issues breeders of that time faced. You could easily have to repeat their decades of selection to weed out unwanted disease issues. Perhaps you should consider using some of the better, healthy minis and modern floribundas which have already been through the selection process and often represent, sometimes vast improvements on the roses you're considering. It's rather remarkable what can be accomplished using a good mini breeder with an OGR or older modern rose.

    Before you roll your eyes, consider that It's Showtime, Moore's HT, was a mini X Tea cross. He called it "A New Tea" for several years before it was sold and released. Creating parallel breeding lines, then bringing them together can also save you a lot of time. Minis are often much more fertile than many of the older Teas and HTs. Taking two, unrelated mini lines, crossing one with the Tea and one with the older HT you want, then taking the best of the results and crossing them together might give you much faster and better results than simply going the Tea X older HT cross. Very often the minis also bring in significantly greater health and vigor; improved rooting capabilities; improved own root performance as well as dwarfing the plants which is one of your goals.

    Once you obtain your premium membership, also take a look at some of Ralph Moore's other mini x OGR crosses.

    http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.17589.2

    http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.25151.0

    http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.25152.0

    http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=2.19052.1

    Then, look up Paul Barden as a breeder, click on "plants bred" tab and look at the amazing results he's had mixing up some of them. You're going to have a BALL! Kim

    Here is a link that might be useful: It's Showtime

  • roseseek
    12 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Sorry, I forgot to add, just because the roses released from a mini x full size rose are minis, does not mean that's all the cross makes. It does mean that is what the breeder was looking for and chose to release.

    Consider that Scentamental's paternal grandmother was Pinstripe, a Moore striped mini. That's where the stripes came from. In fact, if full parentages were reported for modern striped roses, here and abroad, I would strongly suggest they have all come from his striped minis. Minis are as mixed a bag as full sized roses. You are liable to come out with just about any size and type of plant there is from these crosses.

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