HYB:Re:Highest bud counts

There have been on the TB market varieties as low as a bud count of four.
The only reason such a count would have been seen on a high medal winner was
that the individual blooms were long lasting, the blooms coming in slow
sequence and never bunching.  The other extreme might be represented by
JERSEY BOUNCE, which Keppel has seen with up to 15 buds.  A pink, SANCTUS,
that I introduced back a few decades had a similar count on its best stalks.

Those high bud counts require superlative branching as well as multiple bud
counts.

The historic BLUE RHYTHM when extra-well grown has many branches, the lower
branches rebranched with countless buds.

I've not found those extra high bud counts to be worth while, because in
Idaho the later ones always cooked in the heat, and when they didn't, a
substantial proportion of the last ones were abnormal, such as being in twos
instead of threes in flower formation.  The plant ran out of some essential
enzyme or nutrient toward the end of the bud initiation.

How many buds are "good" depends on lasting power of the individual flowers,
their spacing on the stalk, as the higher budcounts give stalks with more
than one or two opening at a time, and can end up wadded up into a bunch.
It also depends on how many or whether the increases send up stalks.  If
they do, the net effect of floriferousness is greater if the blooms on a
small clump are well distributed among several stalks instead of being on
one.

That being said----five is usually too few for a TB, four outrageous unless
compelling reasons exist for introduction, such as rare or unusual coloring
from a new venture in breeding.  Six to eight is about normal, above eight
is good if well spaced and distributed over time.

For other types, other sections, the numbers and the possibilities are quite
different.

How many buds in a socket can range from none (!) to four, ROMANTIC EVENING
when well grown often has four in the terminal socket.  This characteristic
gets passed on to some of its offspring, rescuing some with limited
branching from oblivion.  It's a desirable characteristic, I think, but
often has the same problem with the over-all high budcount varieties in that
some of the last ones are less than normal in form, lacking the normal three
parts usually.

Neil Mogensen  z 7  Reg 4  western NC mountains

SPACE AGE ROBIN Home Page at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SpaceAgeRobin/
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