Someone posted a picture of San Jose Rose Garden ... the roses are tall and planted really close together like a forest. In contrast, the rose park in zone 5a plant their roses widely spaced apart, for ventilation due to blackspot pressure, and for maximum sun-exposure during low-sun fall and winter season. What Kim said about the difference between hot and cold climate is right. We have 4 seasons here: sunny and wet spring, sunny and hot summer, gloomy and wet fall, and cold winter. My husband set the blade to cut grass higher, so that the grass is taller in spring and summer to shield the roots from drying out. My neighbor butchered his grass really short, and it looks really bad scorched at above 90's. In our less sun fall, he lowers the blade, so the grass is cut shorter to allow more sun to penetrate, so we would have less mushroom growing on the lawn in our damp fall.

This is a great discussion. I hope we get a 100 or more posts (even though I hate the garden webs software, its so 90s). Here are my expectations of the effect of cheaper Genotyping on plant identification: To start with, DNA sequencing will cause a huge change in the current bromeliad taxonomy. This should not be surprising and should be welcomed. In fact, the whole concept of species/genus (Linnaean taxonomy) will have to be revised as it's arbitrary and specious (ha ha). The early work that Ive seen on bromeliad DNA is very interesting and demonstrates the unreliability of the current morphologically based taxonomy. "Genotyping provides a measurement of the genetic variation between members of a species. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) are the most common type of genetic variation. A SNP is a single base pair mutation at a specific locus, usually consisting of two alleles (where the rare allele frequency is ≥ 1%). SNPs are often found to be the etiology of many human diseases and are becoming of particular interest in pharmacogenetics. Because SNPs are evolutionarily conserved, they have been proposed as markers for use in quantitative trait loci (QTL) analysis and in association studies in place of microsatellites. The use of SNPs is being extended in the HapMap project, which is attempting to provide the minimal set of SNPs needed to genotype the human genome. SNPs can also provide a genetic fingerprint for use in identity testing" Eventually, popular plants will be Genotyped and the visually and environmentally appealing features will be identified. Breeders will be able to more quickly create hybrids that contain desired traits. So if you want a blue flowering, spineless bromeliad that can tolerate full sun and is cold hardy, you may have a good chance of somebody making one. Unfortunately, the time lag in creating hybrids the old fashioned way will likely be abandoned for the expectations of the quick result of gene jobs. If you can only cross two plants that take a few (or quite a few) years to reach the reproductive state then its going to take a long time to create those highly desirable plants. If you could create a gene job plant that has all kinds of genetic changes orchestrated at the same time, then you can reach the goal much faster. Its happening right now with food products where there is a huge market that justifies the expense. When that expense will decrease to the point that its applied to Bromeliads is anyones guess, but I dont think it will be all that long. I hope to live to see it. And what does this have to do with registering plants? Im not sure, but I suspect that things will change.

A PL version of: I have PL versions of the following: *Neves Azorean Red Big Zac Big Beef Porterhouse *Orange Heirloom *Chapman What am I bid? LOL Why don't hybridizers breed more PL's? Well, you've got your Brandy Boy and a few others I can't think of right now, but take the experience of Petoseed with the Husky series. Those varieties have rugose foliage and they were NOT well accepted by the public at all. So from a commercial standpoint I have to wonder if many PL varieties will come out of the larger commercial hybridizers such as Petoseed, Novartis, Sakata, Known-You, Harris-Moran, Takita, for instance, and all the big hybridizing firms in the Netherlands. They all saw what happened with the Husky series. Most home growers are still growing only F1 hybrids. I think those of us who are somewhat tomato obsessed often forget that we have been exposed to many varieties that the general public has not been exposed to We here know of sources for many other varieties, many of them PL, and we raise our plants from seed while most folks don't. I think that the best chance of having some new PL's is going to come from the breeding efforts of Keith Mueller, Bill Jeffers and a few others who are doing lots of crosses that might lead to some darn good PL varieties, and already have, actually. I'd mention Tom Wagner as well, but he hasn't released anything he's bred to the public in many many years. Carolyn

>"Can you see the tiny gold flecks in the skin? That's another phenomenon somewhat characteristic of a few of Dr. Gardener's Mountain series hybrids ..."I probably should've left that issue out of this thread altogether. Or at least qualified it a bit further by saying that I had seen this gold flecking in Mountain Spring and Mountain Fresh grown last summer nearby in Kentucky by a lady who does market gardening. I also saw it to a lesser degree on some of her Celebrity tomatoes, so I suppose it was genetic and/or environmental. Here are two links related to what I was saying about Dr. Gardner's breeding lines: Fresh Market Tomatoes If you scroll down the page to the picture of NC 127S(2002)-BK, you will see a tomato that looks to my eyes very much like Glory ... except that Glory isn't determinate ... but then there could be hundreds of tomatoes that look exactly like Glory to the naked eye. I just thought that Glory held so well and so long on the kitchen counter that it reminded me of one of the Dr. Gardner market tomatoes ... rather than the Delicious x Brandywine that was alluded to online in a couple of discussions with one of the breeders. And here is a short article about gold fleck that indicates it's probably genetic and/or environmental but not necessarily associated with certain insecticides as was thought by some commercial growers in the Southeast. Gold Fleck on Tomatoes Sorry for steering the discussion away from the original question. I reiterate, Glory is a great hybrid for home gardens IMO. I hope more folks buy the seed from Parks as they are currently selling it at about half price, and I hope that doesn't indicate an upcoming discontinuance. Bill