Arlene, it sounds like you have very good reason to track bud counts. For me, not so much - unless I am thinking of using something as a parent. (Thank you for not making us sick by reporting the bud counts the hybridizers get down in FL.
)
Kim, you are very correct about the importance about maps; I have finally, if very belatedly, learned my lesson about the importance of making maps of my seedling beds.
I offer my story here as a cautionary tale for others.
I have four seedlings now of uncertain parentage, and a fifth which I
believe is a child of one of the first four, which I am keeping around for at least a while. In the case of two of the four seedlings, the plastic label was faded/broken/carried off/lost, and I did not have a map. (I cite medical problems as the reason for why there was no map, and why labels were not refreshed in a timely manner.) I
believe that both of these seedlings may have "Hip to be Square"
somewhere in the background, but I don't know what the other parents are, or even whether H2BS is a parent, or a grandparent. (It is dismaying as I am trying to make crosses with at least one of these two seedlings, but I cannot undo what has (or rather, has not) been done.)
In the case of the third seedling, the label was faded and snapped, but still readable when I moved the seedling. For some reason I couldn't immediately go make a new label (this may have happened at a time involving a different (but serious) medical problem and subsequent treatment), and when I finally got back to the job, the faded/snapped label had gone missing. (AND I was still making seedling observations in a paper journal at that time... which subsequently got waterlogged or lost or something, so I can only guess at the possible parentage from some few computer notes.)
The fourth seedling, let's call it "A", came about because I was too hasty to remove labels in a seedling bed. I had already long since decided that there was nothing earth shaking and worth keeping in the bed, and had removed all of the labels from the seedling bed some weeks (months?) earlier, in the fall. Come spring, I had finally gotten around to digging up all of the seedlings to dispose of them, when I saved that one seedling "A" at the last minute - because it was putting up a scape which showed several poly buds on the emerging scape. (I didn't have a map, but from the seedlings that I had recorded which got planted (there were not, at that time, many tets), and the bloom and other traits, I'm about 95-98% certain of who the two parents were, though I don't know which way the cross was (I had done it both ways).)
The fifth seedling "B"
I believe is a child of "A", but it is possible that I don't know the pod parent.
THAT came about because I had several (overgrown) seedlings in one of those deep 32 or 38 plug trays, and I was having a horrendous time getting the seedlings out. I had to tip over the tray to try to forcibly push the seedlings out, but unfortunately several labels came out. (I can't recall with 100% certainty if the label stayed IN for this plug or not - I believe it did. But I had to put other labels back in the best as I could determine where they should be, and a few of
those seedlings turned out to be clearly
not from the cross on the label.)
Assuming this fifth seedling
is a child of "A", I believe that the pod parent matches what was written on the label (so this seedling "B" is possibly "Q" x "A"), but the pod parent could also have been two other possibilities, "R" or "S". (Again, from certain bloom traits I am leaning towards "Q", but I could be wrong.) Or, I could even be wrong about that, and it might not be a child of "A" at all - but a seedling from one particular cross between two different registered cultivars. (But I doubt that - because the seedling flower is nicely formed and opens well, whereas I would not expect such a result from that last possibility.)
I may very well use that fifth seedling (and continue to use the fourth seedling, and two if not three of the other three seedlings) in crosses. As you might imagine, I am not happy at not having the parentages nailed down with certainty. (And can you imagine registering that fifth one? At best, the parentage would be listed as Unknown x Seedling....
)
Lessons learned:
No more plastic labels, or any label that can break or snap apart or fall out or be carried off by critters, or whose name can fade. (Once I actually plant out the infant seedlings, I have decided to use impressionable labels from now on; if I want to read them easily, I go over the impressions with a garden marker.)
Don't use multi-plug trays. (These are an attractive option and I'm sure that they work well for some people, but in my garden, I get around to things when I get around to them. I have clearly learned that if you wait too long to empty the plug trays, it is a nightmare trying to wrestle out the seedlings - and the labels can fall or be pushed out in the process, with ensuing identity confusion. If I
really, really, absolutely wanted to continue to use the plug trays (I don't), I would make a map of each tray before trying to wrestle out the seedlings.)
Map all of the seedling beds. Maintain the maps. 'Nuff said.
Don't remove seedling labels until the actual Moment of Truth (which is when you dispose of the seedling, or keep it).
Finally, when transplanting a "keeper" (even if only for another season) seedling, make sure to keep the label with it, and/or make a new one if needed.
