Hello to all

I am a new member, and also my first post

I am a retired wholesale/propagation nursery here in Florida
And did a lot of work on hybridizing; Hibiscus and orchids
A very interesting posting on baby Adeniums.

Variegated Adenium and any other plants;

Variegation in any plants is/are coded cells improperly placed in make-up string, put them back in proper order and variegation is reverted to normal.

Plant DNA is actually kept in many different bit of cells stored throughout the entire plant, ex. Leaves, roots ... Every time new growth happens all those bits of information are collected and reassembled in growth tip to duplicate plant specifics BUT time to time those cells are not recollected in proper order (although been within the string) and her you have your new variegated specimen. These will NEVER produce any new establish strain, period!
For those dealing with hybridizing for a long time knows that; you take a male pink and female pink your have more chance to get any other color than pink, the raison been quit simple, plant do not store one genetic code but actually it’s one + one of each parent, + one of each grand parents and so on. We know that by looking back at breeding data, many time grand parents been the most relevant in new crosses.

VARIEGATION: Looking at the molecular explosion taking place with at least 10 full DNA stored strings to create one unique for new hybrid. Your chance to get a brand new fixed genus, most likely NEVER. The data has to be rewritten and not moved around to be stable. Although it’s also quit possible by a nature trick!

In my last seedling bath 3 sprouted with very poor chlorophyll level giving them a golden glow, a 4 sprouted as grayish leaves with a pink margins, produced 6 or 7 variegated leaves set and reverted to plain green and finely a 5th one with gorgeous green, yellow and white variegation.

Anyone how has a true variegated seedling should do some cross breeding for the above raison * a nature frick that all it takes.

Conclusion: do not spend any money on variegated seeds unless you’re a dreamer!!!

Hi, Pat!!

Aha! Thank you for this info. I've heard that varigation is not passed along through seeds, but not the nuts and bolts of why.

I read where the doubles are bred, the single to Doxon, the offspring back to Doxon, and the "grandchildren" have a chance to be doubles from seed. Oh, The very first double, a red, was found by a breeder in Viet Nam in 2007, or '08, and is called by various spellings of Doxon.. He posted about it in the Yahoo Adeniums group, saying he wasn't sure if it was a true plant. Created somewhat of an explosion in the varieties of flowers, for sure.

I saw where new coleus colors are often a side shoot of a bigger plant that are true growing. ??? I don't talk right, use the right words, tho' I sometimes actually know what I am talking about, wheeee.

I am breeding my doubles to themselves, and crossing with other doubles, but have yet to have any 'babies' bloom. Sigh, maybe in the spring. I have several seedlings of "Moonlight" a pale cream/yellow double. And more than twenty pairs of pods on various plants.

I have started foliar feeding the pods, and some of them are getting as fat as cigars!

And, I am looking at my more primitive obseums, or original pinks, to begin breeding them for good caudex form. I haven't seen any seed for caudex(es) for sale. Caudices. Dr. Dimmitt, know him? ...Says some of the newer flowers do much better, stronger and better blooming, if they are grafted. I have plants grafted onto arabicum rootstock, which I suspect inhibits growth and bloom frequency. Arabicums most definitely go dormant in winter, as obseums do not, in tropical places. Where I live in the Caribbean is supposed to be tropical. I sure freeze half to death on some winter nights here.

Moonlight

Breeding is something very complex happening within the plant and we do not have any control really, all we do is to select a male and a female and hope for the best, more or less like the loterie.

What needs to be understood with breeding, it’s the length of time and commitment required;
• Complete recorded data from both parents and 2 or 3 previous parentage if possible.
• Grow every single seeds produced until blooming, and evaluate only those showing specific characteristic. Everything else should be discarded!!!
• The one selected should be inter-bred, and as above all seeds select and toss away again select ing only the specific characteristic and repeat again and again as you progress more and more will carry specific criteria you are after, this is a long process, usually several years in making as a spontaneous nature caprice as many time it happens.
• At this point, we will cross back with original parent for a very specific trait, size, color whatever you are after. Now you have a fairly well establish strain.
• This kind of work it’s mostly done by commercial growers toward a market profit.
*It would very interesting to have these major hybrydizers describing the road taken, believe me it will be very mush similar as the above description.

I grow mostly A. Arabicum, only a few from wild collected seeds too wide unexpected spectrum growth but a lot of Thai Arabicum and Arabicum/Soco they are far more predictable due to the extensive breeding selection done. I love Obesum bloom but honestly I truly dislike the caudex if you could that a caudex, ugly!!!

Here how I impersonally handle my seedling, try next time give it a try, it’s pretty amazing;
• Sowing in coconut coir *peat moss tends to produce skinnier seedlings.
• As soon seed have sprouted (3 to 5 days over a week to the compost pile), the cell(s) are transferred under 35% shade, entirely sprayed and drenched with salicylic acid at 325mg in 2 gallons water then plain water one or twice a day depending of weather.
• First Saturday at night sprayed with Hormex *full strength and ¼ tsp Kelp / gallon same watering pattern.
• At one week old, ¼ tsp composted chicken manure *black hen NPK 5-1-1 in one of cell corner water thoroughly.
• Second Saturday sprayed with surperthrive *full strength + ¼ tsp fish meal / gallon same watering pattern
• Third week usually done on middle of the week, Salicylic acid same 325mg in 2 gallons
• Third Saturday, repeat of first Saturday
• Fourth Saturday repeat of second, I a sure you got the drift!
• Fourth week seedling will have 3 sets of true leaves and are ready for transplant. Yes!

The main reason for this approach is to separate toss-up from keeper
By such forcing from nutrition and hormones 4 distinct s caudex size will be truly visible;
• Giant = toss-up from my experience
• Regular = keeper most will fall into that category
• Dwarf = keeper the best for BONSAI
• Nature anomalies = toss-up; low chlorophyll, variegated ext… *I normally keep the variegated one but that is a secret!
From this point I am able to select and deal only with the best, unfortunately it is not before 6 to 10 months old for me to have side branching started and to know the overall future shape. (If someone has any experience this will be more then welcome)
At first transplant I will decide the one(s) for graft root-stock from the one(s) for Bonsai and make different NPK formula accordingly.

*Feeding for your seed pods, honestly I do not see how that can change any DNA make-up
*I do not know Mr. Dimmit but I did read his articles, he is on growing Adeniums for their full size and treat’s bonsai growth as underfeed. I personalty grow addendum as Banzai and this is far more complex then just malnutrition.

And Melissa I did live in St Thomas USVI for 10 years, looking to come back one day. Hope this give you a different window of culture experiments.

Few pictures of my 5 and 6 months old 2012 seedling



My 10 years old bonsai Thai A. Arabicum/Socotranum *Khao Hin Zon, never pruned once barely 1 foot tall, right after blooming phase.

Khao Hin zon foliage details

Hi,
Just curious, you posted:
"In my last seedling bath 3 sprouted with very poor chlorophyll level giving them a golden glow, a 4 sprouted as grayish leaves with a pink margins, produced 6 or 7 variegated leaves set and reverted to plain green and finely a 5th one with gorgeous green, yellow and white variegation".
How many seeds did you plant?
Was one of the parents -grandparents, ETC variegated?
thanks
Mike

I usually 5 seeds at the time came from cultivar and only per cultivar. None having any variegated off-spring to my knowledge, they are well document Thai Arabicum champion
The only Obesum be a cross O. super perfume X Artic snow

What a beautiful varigated seedling!

I am feeding the pods because of nutrition, not to change the DNA. I had a nice pod on a big triple red named Valentine Rose that was rather thin. The seeds, when ripe, were spindly and empty, no viable seeds after drooling over the pod for all those months. It's a huge difference in size and growth of the pods once I started spraying them with everything in my arsenal just as the sun comes up, two weeks ago.. Some have grown thicker than my thumb.

I am not really serious about trying to come up with anything special as to flower form. The Thai breeders are wayyyyy ahead of me, and have hired help, and nurseries of 30,000 seedlings. The photos of year old plants in four inch pots stretching off into the distance amaze me! I am keeping records as best I can.

I am crossing the fragrant flowers with each other. I have a seedling of "New Yellow", a Ko flower, I thimmk, that has a canary yellow throat, and an aroma of sweet vanilla, all day. The other five fragrant flowers I have are fragrant for a few minutes here and there when they feel like it. Erghhhh!

In the Yahoo group, there is occasional mention of a cross between Adenium and Oleander. I looked closely at an oleander flower just this morning, and they are the same as Adenium! I think I'll play around with trying to get a cross.

I need a camera!! I got some seedlings to bloom five months from planting, sown in May. Boy, that varigated of yours is really nice...

Dr. Dimmitt tried, with others, to form a World Adenium Society a few years ago, but it didn't go anywhere. Too bad they didn't just go for American Adenium Society, as none of the SE Asia people joined. They were too busy with making money.

There now obseums that stay very small, naturally. And the Thai-socos are getting to be amazing little monsters.

Yes, St. Thomas. I've been there, and I know there's another St. Thomas, but I've only seen the traffic and 15,000 cruise ship folks all downtown at once. I really don't know why anyone would live there, haha! My island is totally sleepy in comparison. We get only one or two ships a week in the winter season.

Adenium and Oleander are actually compatible for intergeneric breeding at-least on paper, both are;
= Family: Apocynaceae and have same Chromosome number: 2n = 22

Aha! Thank you for that, Pat! There is a nice hedge of Oleander down the road, guess I'll raid it for some cuttings with blooms. The Yahoo Adenium group never did come up with a cross, they just talkied about it.

Where did you get the info about chromosome numbers??? You must have a BIG biological reference book, teehee.

This is so good, the exchange with you, I am so happy to be learning from you!

Let's hope for a weird new plant from my crossing efforts! I can't imagine, yet, what charistics the offspring would have.

Sorry for not responding immediately,

info about chromosome numbers, are widely available on the web: search (plant name) chromosome numbers, very simple.

Indeed it will be very interesting to have someone taking a look, now compatibility be, doesn't means it will be successful, nature thing you! know. and give it a try for at least a full year minimum.

*I don't know your fertilizer composition, but make sure you have at least the 17 minimums minor, micro and trace elements, personally I use over 60 in my program.
*as you probably know already Adenium flowers are most receptible on the second day.
*as pollen is best as soon bags open, pollination should be done in early morning, overcast days be the best.
*and finally have on standby young seedlings just in case they needs to be transferred on a stronger root system *the best method with Adeniums will be the cotyledon graft.

Have fun and keep us informed.

And please excuse me for my poor English, I never had a chance to go to school for it!

English is the most difficult language on Earth.

Where does one get such an array of trace elements? I can't even find a mixture with Boron, Zinc and Copper.

Pollen bags. Aha, is that when they look like tiny loaves of bread, as opposed to little blobs of mouldy cottage cheese? I bet!

You're keeping me hopping looking up what you're talking about, like "cotyledon graft". I love it! Most commercial grafting of Adeniums is either a wedge graft or a flat graft. Hum, neither discussed in the grafting page I found by the HortScience people for grafting tiny watermelon seedlings. And most commercial Adenium grafting is done onto two year old rootstock, with a 2 inch caudex. I have yet to successfully graft any plants, but I'm still trying.

OK, a whole year. It is fall, but my flowers are still making pods. (with my help!)

Question: How important is it to place the pollen right on the stigma-- in the best place on the stigma? Does pollen disperse at all, or must it be in the exact right place by 100th of an inch? I am speaking specifically of Adeniums here.

Melissa you sound like you are up to your neck making pods, where are your pictures, my one pod still is not ripe yet, I bet the two who asked for seeds have given up on me, but it is still there

No Melissa; Pollen do not disperse, in case of adenium it is spread by an insect a type of moth I believe and if not placed right on sticky part of stigma fertilization will not take place.

When a grain of pollen is in the right place on stigma, pollen will germinate and grow inside the pistil to the ovary plants where fertilization will or not happen and that is good for all non wind pollinated plants. seems complicate but all you have to do is place it at the right spot

Back then at the nursery I was doing over a 1000 cross a year *Orchids, Hibiscus and at the very end few Adeniums

OK. I am still chopping up my poor flowers. This day's operations found that the stupid rain had filled up the flowers like little pitchers, and washed away the pollen. Booooo! I need a little, or bigger greenhouse. Rain can be a pest!

Pat, I didn't mean 'disperse' as in from one flower to another by wind, which is the usual definition. I meant the glob of pollen inside the one flower where I put it. Twice now, I've seen something that looked like a teenie tiny puff of smoke coming out of a flower as it jiggled when I moved the plant. I wonder what that could be?

I have 'skipper' butterflies that I've watched crawl all the way inside flowers, they must be the culprit for the Adeniums that I don't pollinate. Here's a googled page of photos of Skippers...

http://www.google.com/search?q...

Doris, yes, I am becoming alarmed at the seedpods, so many! But I keep on pollinating! Wa! Photos soon, I found my lost camera!!!

A friend said, "I'm going to come visit you and buy some of your flowers." What?? I don't really have any to let go. I sputtered at her, but I know she'll never find the time to come visit. I decided the next time I see her, I'm going to say, "I want to buy four tables and sixteen chairs from your restaurant" That'll give her a framework for thinking that I'm running a nursery. In a year or two, yes, but not now...