dellac said:But at what point in pod development the seed starts to toughen up? I don't know. I'd have to sacrifice quite a few pods to discover that for myself.

I'm afraid sacrificial pods pods would be the only way to provide the necessary experience. Words can only convey so much. But now that I'm friends with Berry Francis (he spoke at the 2014 NALS Lily convention and we talked quite a bit), perhaps I can bend his ear. He complains (!) that he can do ER and grow things in vitro just fine, but can't grow them in the garden!

the Balkans are the epicenter of hellebores. The old Sunrise and Sunset strains came from the east and west sides of the Triglav (Slovenia).

Leftwood said:
I'm afraid sacrificial pods pods would be the only way to provide the necessary experience. Words can only convey so much.

True.

But now that I'm friends with Berry Francis (he spoke at the 2014 NALS Lily convention and we talked quite a bit), perhaps I can bend his ear. He complains (!) that he can do ER and grow things in vitro just fine, but can't grow them in the garden!

I'll swap him some green thumb for some lab work!

the Balkans are the epicenter of hellebores. The old Sunrise and Sunset strains came from the east and west sides of the Triglav (Slovenia).

This is the big botanical drawcard for me - the hellebores and the Balkan lilium species ...and the trees! When you live in Australia, most everything that gets substantially over head height is a eucalypt or an Acacia, or some close relative of... (ok, there's the proteaceae too and they're more interesting but also more infrequent), and it gets just so monotonous.

Test Update for post # 666594, dated July 25th, 2014. reference photo taken July 25th.




Pictures below taken today of the unfertilized flower with the protected stigma show the maximum upturn of the style experienced since July 25th. At no time during the period did it achieve any greater upturn. The unfertilized pod also retained it's original posture throughout. In both photos, the unfertilized test bud is in the foreground. The fertilized test bud is in the center to the rear. Its pod is nearly twice as large and has moved from the original downward posture to horizontal, trending rapidly upward. In the photo its size appears equal to the test bud only because it is farther away from the camera. The style of the fertilized bud showed little if any change in upward orientation during the period. The expected or anticipated upturn never happened (with this plant).

I thought I should do a photo status now because this plant is showing a definite tendancy to abort unfertilized pods.

Thanks Lorn!

Any thoughts that the foil may weigh down the style from turning upward?

No, it's too light to have any affect. Foil didn't weigh down this one

Update pictures for our little test.





I guess the only thing proven with this 'sample of one' is that the style and unfertilized pod of this plant will not turn up. If I were a betting man, I'd be willing to bet that some do. And, if we were to run a test on 20 to 25, we would probably find a couple!

Good test Lorn. I did my first protected pollination today. Speciosum album x Firebolt. I do realize that this is the only way to tell what the cross was for sure but I do feel like it was annoying getting that foil on. Let's just say I'm not known for being delicate! All my other crosses were heavily pollinated on a fresh flower but I didn't cap the stigmas.

Actually, if you don't have much of anything blooming right now, you probably could have just as well left it uncapped. I think many beginning cappers think it's difficult because they try to be too perfect. Actually capping is one thing you can be pretty darn lazy and careless about and still be effective. Don't worry--the cap's not going to fall off and don't worry about foreign pollen getting in there--it's highly unlikely, and if a couple grains do--so what--that can sometimes be a good thing. Especially if they act as a mentor in some fashion.

Here's the thing with pollination. I always like to say you can pollenate 'six ways from sundown'. I think the way you've been doing it is to leave the stigma unprotected for the first day or two, then pollenate on day two or three, then leave it unprotected for the duration. Nothing wrong with that; I do that a lot on purpose when doing preliminary exploration and it's the one way I like the most. It almost always gives me more than half of my intended target offspring and it gives me a little variety of open pollination offspring both before and after my intentional dosage. Sometimes there are some real nice surprises in this before and after category. I get the most enjoyment out of that procedure two years after the fact. I'm not alone when it comes to favoring this method; other well known hybridizers use it a lot too, in preliminary crossing work. You only need 20 or 25 seeds in a pot to tell you what the cross will be. If it's good cross, then get serious with protective caps in the next stage of controlled crossing.

Here's my lazy way of protective capping. I fold a little square of foil (about 1 & 1/4 inches or so) in half. Then I grasp both ends with thumb and forefingers and push to form a little canoe. Center the stigma in the canoe form. Then bend both ends of foil down gently and ever-so-lightly tighten around the style. Done! No muss-no fuss; I can do it faster than I type. There!

I'm sure I'll get used to it. Actually I usually put the pollen on the stigma immediately after opening and after I've neutered the pollen end. I figure if the stigma isn't receptive right away, there is a load of fresh pollen on it when it is ready!

That's right, it'll start germinating as soon as the stigma gets stigmatic fluid.

The Lilium Crossing Polygons. Fairly old, but still very useful. They will take a little time to understand, but will give an idea of which crosses are likely to produce naturally viable seed.

http://www.liliumbreeding.nl/p...

The original clone of Tropical Isle that B&D has, and is currently propagating, is one super strong hardy clone. A darn good one!

Question:

keithp2012 said:If someone pollinated a pollen less Lily with pollen from another what are the chances the offspring will or will not have pollen?

Reply:

magnolialover said:I would like to say am not sure Keith, but one of these days I should have offspring blooming that would give you an idea. I will also add, sometimes you can try to predict what you might get as offspring given two parents, with protected crosses, but many times there are surprises you don't expect. Being that I am not a geneticist, I have no concrete idea, only what I would be hopeful for, based on the parents.

Reply:

Roosterlorn said:Yes, the real proof is in the pudding--the only 'real' way to find out is to try it and see what you get. But here's my little theory. All parts of a native Species flower have evolved over millions of years for a natural purpose in life. Each part has a single purpose to perform a function crucial to a plants natural life cycle from birth to death. I think of those essential parts as being generally dominant. Since pollen is essential to the normal process of reproduction, it would follow then, that it could and should be easily bred back in. The same for fragrance and so on. But life isn't always that easy. Today commercial hybrids are very complex and far removed from a first time cross to a Species, and, they are full of surprises!!!

I have a little experience with one unknown pollen-less cultivar that is at least 45 years old. I'm 55 years old now, and have been growing it since my childhood. I call it "Lilium from Harvey". Harvey Pellerin was a Cajun friend of my parents, and he gave me my very first lilies to grow. Every once in a while, a flower of this cultivar does throw a single pollen grain or two, and if they are fertile I have no idea. Maybe the anthers just never open, but I think not. I'm embarrassed to say that I have never really investigated (where is that "smack on the head" emoticon?). Anyway, this is it:


And these are some representative examples of seedlings from it.
Lilium from Harvey x Lilium 'Kathy Jan'


Lilium from Harvey x Lilium 'Olina'




Lilium from Harvey x Lilium 'Olina' (different pod)




Lilium from Harvey x Lilium 'Olina' (yet another different pod)


Lilium from Harvey x Lilium 'Winnipeggy'


So crossing with Kathy Jan always produced pollen producing offspring.
Crossing with Olina always produced pollen-less offspring.
And crossing with Winnepeggy, well, I don't remember if all the offspring were pollen-less or not. That's the only pic I have.
(But isn't it interesting that a yellow crossed with a red (Winnipeggy) produced a white?)

I have a gut feeling your interesting white seedling is a Sweet Surrender baby. I think Harvey was fooling around behind Winnipeggy's back!

I've mentioned quite a while back the numbers of pollenless seedlings I've had out of Mont Blanc breeding, even though it is a variety with pollen, crossed with other normal pollen-producing lilies. I've eaten most of them, but I noticed a few days ago that one has snuck through. It's flowering now. I'll try to take a pic and take note of how long the flowers last. Maybe I'll relent on it and experiment with it. I could still find a bit of asiatic pollen around to cross with it.

A side-note... I relented on Sweet Surrender after your defence of it, Rick, and seeing some seedlings yourself and Hank posted. I've kept a few and done alot of crossing with it this year. In the same vein, though the flower doesn't appeal to me, I'd put Harvey on a list of desirable breeders. If it lasted so well for over 45 years it certainly has what the next generation of lilies needs!

dellac said:I have a gut feeling your interesting white seedling is a Sweet Surrender baby. I think Harvey was fooling around behind Winnipeggy's back!

Indeed that resulting seedling would seem much more logical. We all can make mistakes, and I have found disagreeing data in my notes before. Usually I am able to determine which record is correct, but over the years there are a few (especially in the earlier days) that are forever unresolvable. Regarding this particular seedling, your more believable physical observation has prompted me to do some rechecking. I only have one other back-up note to check: the actual label in the garden, but it's under the snow now. So far everything agrees: my garden map rendering, my hybridizing notebook, the original hybridizing label attached to the pod(I keep them all exactly for this purpose), and my hybridizing spread sheet(which shows I did not use Sweet Surrender that year at all). I only mention all this to stress how important it can be to retain all the "evidence", even if you may never need it.

I do agree that the Lilium from Harvey has some less than desirable qualities, including rather thin petals, although they are brighter yellow than in the pic. I've kept it all these years for sentimental value, and the foliage has such a lacquered shine, even more so than Lilium maculatum. Harvey didn't even dabble in hybridizing, and I don't know if the cultivar was named or not. He was "just" a lily lover, and a member of the North Star Lily Society, so he could have gotten hold of unnamed seedlings from the breeders of that era.

Incidentally, Lilium from Harvey produces quantities of stem bulbils. The trait remains in, say, a third of the seedlings, but all of those possess a diminished effect.

I'd be happy to hybridise with Harvey, were it to exist here in Aus.

Now... I didn't mean to cause you all that data-checking, but it's impressive how well you keep records. A great failing of mine. (Though this year I did make a handful of seedbox maps, which I discovered I'll need this morning as my permanent marker, wasn't.) I wondered if maybe a stray pollen grain or two snuck through behind your back and 'contaminated' the cross.

....I've become less concerned, myself, about keeping crosses for myself completely clean, though I still protect them. Watching ants work around for nectar in flowers and wander up and down styles, it occurs to me that any number of little feet could find a crack in the foil. I've grown to like the possibility of a 'nature's surprise' factor.

Della, that's the Leslie Woodriff in ya---we all have a little of that in us when it comes to records, I think. Like you, I do my best to keep it clean, but I also realize I only need 20 or 25 target seeds to tell me all I need to know and besides, if one or two offspring are out of the park, they might be a nice surprise. I'm also a big fan of mixed pollen, 5 or 6 different ones.

A couple of years ago I started using a variety of pollens, yet despite being hopelessly disordered in many ways, I also have a closet OCD side that insists I only use three pollens; a different one neatly on the each of the three stigma lobes.