Moldy Seeds

Mid season year before last I read that roses could be grown from seed and some would flower in just three or four months. That was the hook. I mean Zinnias and Marigolds take that long. After finding rose seeds are not easily available I quit dead heading. Later, all these hips ready to go in the frig are on the table, too much bulk, ok, seeds are out, next step is in the zip locks, need moister, have moister already what with some pulp on there. Twelve weeks later shoe box out with the baggies and they look a little moldy. Some articles said a little mold is no problem, so seeded up and had some some germination. Last year same routine but had to take a look after eleven weeks and what a shock nothing but bags of mold---but wait, some have germinated. After another week of preparation things are set to try and salvage something. Had to cut the baggies apart and try not damage the germinated ones. Next saucers and Bromelain, rinse off, seed up,full saucer like some of these is two trays---forget that, this pudding like mess is going in one tray. Just smooth out the globs try not to damage the germinated ones, some a inch long. quickly cover the mess so you don't have to look at it. Two weeks later it looked thick as grass coming up in my best tray. Some times, you get lucky. Next year the prolific one is going domed up in the garage frig and maybe some seeded cottage cheese containers. I wonder if there are any urban farmers (no joke) that swing by this site. Lots of luck.

I look forward to seeing the baby blooms you get.

And so do I. Cheers

Regarding mould... I generally believe that mould is an important part of the germination process. Many barriers need to be overcome to allow germination to occur. This includes removing chemical germination inhibitors. Moulds are a natural part of most natural systems and they help decompose the achene to allow moisture to enter and assist in leaching these germination inhibitors out. I don't generally worry too much about moulds at all unless it is that awful black thick stuff. White, grey moulds are ok by me. One thing I have noticed this year is that I stratified a bunch of seeds in moist peat in ziplock bags and not one developed any mould. I believe, also, that peat has natural mould inhibitors (possibly the low pH) and it also seems to assist the germination process and the leaching of the inhibitors. All my seeds will get this treatment this year. I'm not going to use paper towel or perlite anymore because the paper towel makes such a mess and the perlite I think is a bit hit-and-miss in its effectiveness.

Keep it up Neil you're going ot have to start doing some planned crosses now.

Most of my roses I've had for 20 years and others purchased before the thought of growing by seed so names where not important.Aromatherapy was just given, Rio Samba 18 seedlings so far, wide germination time spread lot of hips and BS. Peace, nothing--Tropicana,nothing, ------ Looks like Camilia some pictures, 150 hips, 50 plus and counting, nothing bothers this one. The good mother is red 100hips somewhat. wild guess 600 germinated and counting 50 plus damaged, sorta raggedy now, going to give it a rest, more than some BS, big variation in seedlings. Another red, 60 and counting, nothing bothers this much except lots of rain on the buds, little BS. We are two months before bloom time but all are budding out early. Any ideas would be appreciated, just going the path of least resistance so far. I like the flowers, so going to do something different than bag the thing and see if it works.

Well... you've done what 99.99999% of rose breeders do to start with! You've sown the OP hips and practiced a lot with these... you know your roses and which ones are more fertile than others. If you speak with more accomplished breeders they will tell you the most important thing is to start with proven breeders and don't try to reinvent the wheel (unless you live in Australia where we can't get a lot of the well known, more innovative, breeding stock in which case reinventing the wheel is our only option ). The trend today is to steer away from the pretty exhbition-style hybrid tea type rose in favour of something with more landscape appeal. Landscape appeal means many things. To me landscape appeal means something that will form a shrub as wide as it is tall. Tall, rangey roses are not the easiest plants to place in any landscape. It also means a rose that has a long bloom cycle but not necessarily continuous blooming. Azalea and camelia don't repeat so my feeling is that we often ask too much of our roses. Repeat blooming comes at a cost and this is often size of bloom, size of the plant etc and in some cases overall health. To me, and this is THE most important consideration for me, landscape appeal also means something that doesn't need to be pampered with chemicals or constant pruning... something that naturally looks good. Maybe I chose the wrong type of plant to be obsessed with because I'm very much a hands-off gardener. If it can't fend for itself here it is destined to fail. This is why I really like the newer ground cover roses. I've focused on these a bit this year. Anything based on Rosa wichurana gets my attention these days along with most of the species roses with Australian potential (a lot don't). The most important thing you can think of is to select roses that are good for YOUR climate. The roses you have there that do well for you may very well fail dismally here in Australia. String a few 40 degree days together with 80+% humdity and most roses will start to protest but there are some that seem to tolerate it better than others and so are logical choices for breeding roses here in Australia. In your zone 6 climate you need to select for winter hardiness. I would recommend you give some of the cold-hardy species like spinossisima and rugosa etc a look as well as roses in the Canadian series. Have a look for some of Dr Bayses roses as well. Don't write off the older roses. They aren't ALL good but there are a few that are really worth using in a modern context. Have clear goals in mind before you start. I have a few basic goals which underpin all my thought processes and then a lot of minor goals that form a subset of these primary goals. For instance I refuse to spray anything right from seedling to adult. If it can't survive without chemical intervention it was never meant to! So one of my primary goals is to breed rose non-chemically addicted roses. Everything else gets hung on this primary goal. My next primary goal is to breed roses that don't need fussing over. That means minimal prunning, little training (unless it's something like a climber) and something that will look good naturally. I'm time-poor so if something needs constant dead-heading here and other special treatment then I don't want to know about it. Then, it has to look good. This kind of goes hand-in-hand with the second one because if it looks good naturally then it will be pleasing to look at in the garden. Big, exhibition style blooms are not important to me. In a landscape setting I think smaller less formal blooms borne in profusion add more to the landscape than do larger formal blooms borne in fewer numbers. So, I tend to prefer smaller, semi-double blooms. Fragrance is a bonus to me. My goal in NOT to form large shrubby roses with big hybrid tea style blooms... I'll leave that to the show bench breeders. I don't want to be remembered as contributing to the already long crappy list of roses we already have. I do want to be remembered for being someone who thinks outside the square and has helped to turn around the bad reputation roses in general currently have.

So that's it Also hang out at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] . It's a wealth of knowledge. Spend some time collecting good parents, and talk to others about it. There are a lot of other people in the U.S. on there as well as Paul Barden, who lives near Oregon (from what I understand), who can offer you assistance. It's great there and has helped me enormously. Join [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] . It is the single BIGGEST and BEST tool for hybridisers available today anywhere!

I look forward to seeing the results of your breeding and talking with you more about it in the future.

Thanks, good info.