HYB: Broken Color

Brad Kasparek (currently the most prolific broken color guy, as far as I know) once recommended to me BC x Plicata crosses (or vice-versa) to get the most BC seedlings.  So far, I have managed to get 4 pods from BC crosses; none with BC pod parents.  Most BC's are relatively short, and the pod parents can be selected to give larger stalks with better branching.  With that in mind, this year's cross was LAUGH LINES x ANACONDA LOVE.  SPIRIT WORLD x GNU BLUES has a dozen 2-inch seedlings right now.

The only BC crosses to bloom for me so far have been FILIBUSTER x GNU and ROCK STAR x GNU.  That one could have been really different, but neither one gave any BC babies.  FILIBUSTER x GNU was a disgusting (and perplexing) failure; I discarded the entire row of seedlings after about 6 or 8 of them bloomed and every single one was a variation on the theme "black cherry bitone with open standards".  Where did THAT come from?  If it is possible that a bee played a trick on me and got to it before I did, I did not see any similarity to anything I was growing at the time.  Usually, even in the worst crosses, at least some sign of one of the parents can be seen in the results.

Looking at all the 1-to-3-inch seedlings from last year's crosses (they didn't get potted until embarassingly late), one tray is a noticeably different color from all the others; a uniformly pleasing and healthy-looking deep green with a faint bluish-gray cast.  Not my fist choice of crosses, but BEST BET x DOUBLE DRIBBLE may at least produce interesting breeding stock.  I'd like to get that elusive blue neglecta bred for vigor in warmer climates, with modern qualities.  Unfortunately, none of my LOUISA'S SONG crosses that took this year included the two "blue" ones.  I wasted all my LS pollen attempting the same "potentially awesome" cross on a reluctant pod parent, and my CLOUD BALLET pod (on LS) dropped off.

John Reeds, in not-so-sunny-this-week San Juan Capistrano, CA zone 9b
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