re: HYB: genetics questions....
iris@hort.net
  • Subject: re: HYB: genetics questions....
  • From: L* M* <l*@lock-net.com>
  • Date: Sat, 05 Jun 2010 07:48:43 -0500
Steve, like Christian, I'm no expert, but also as Christian says, generally, it's not a good idea to try to get back a trait that's lost to the F1, mostly because there are so many other traits that have to line up just right at the same time. My guess is that if you are working with strongly inbred lines where all the other traits are pretty uniform in the parents and seedlings, and there is just one trait you are trying to recapture that got lost, it might be worth it. But I dont' really know.
Trying to increase flower size on seedlings is something I've been attempting also, working with some of the really tough rebloom lines here - IMMORTALITY and HARVEST OF MEMORIES. Both are highly prone to giving small flowered seedlings, but not always. If I ever had a small flowered seedling from these lines that also summer bloomed here, I might try to work with it, but my impression so far is that it's a trait that seems to follow along with 'weedy' median type growth. And having grown on a few of them for more than a year just to see if they would rebloom, have decided that's really a waste of space and am tossing them as soon as they bloom now.
An added issue with bloom size is that it can be so strongly affected by growing conditions. Some (esp the west coast/Oz) intros often have both stalks and blooms miniaturized here - cute, but not looking like TBs. Seems to result from inadequate moisture/too much heat right before/during bloom season. They look like MTBs - registered at 36" tall, but only about 18 to 20" tall here, with blooms in proportion to the stalk.
Which makes it hard to evaluate seedlings. I have used some of these for pollen, and so far, while form of seedling bloom isn't bad, none so far have had what I would call large (i.e. Schreiner sized) blooms. 

Hope that helps a little.
In this group (and from hybridizers), it's been a lot easier to find out about inheritance of pigments and their patterns than about inheritance of other traits like stalk height, bloom size, disease resistance. Let me know if you find out more specific information. 

Or if you have room to do some experiments, let us know what you learn!  ;-)

Linda Mann east TN USA zone 7

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