I have used my Santa Rosa's as a pollinator for my Satsuma's for 35 years. The pair have worked nicely for me. The plums are both good...albeit very different tasting. Santa Rosa is tart, and Satsuma is very sweet and "fleshy". They are good low-chill fruits.

Hi Karen, welcome! You're going to have a ball! Your questions... 1. Is it Ok to use an unknown as a parent? Is this often done, or frowned upon? Of course! If the unknown has traits you're interested in, go for it. That's something which is done (or at least reported as having been done) all the time. 2. Interested in other's experiences - what was your initial success/failure ration. Is it possible to get a success in your first group, or can you expect to try hundreds of times before having your first success? That's hit and miss. Some get great results right away. Others of us take forever but eventually get interesting things. Forty years go, it was reported only one out of ten-thousand seedlings was worth introducing by J&P, but they were traditionally raising HT X HT which resulted in a lot of inbreeding of a very limited gene pool. If you're repeating that trend, those could easily be your expected results. If you're mixing things up, using modern roses with species or some other "out there" direction, you may hit something worth spreading around in your first batch. As I said, it's hit and miss. 3. What makes a good hybridizer. Is it an exercise in patience and persistence, or is there some special artistic "magic" that must be within the individual hybridizer? "Hybridizer" would be patience, persistence and research. A good "Selector" is someone with a good eye, "artistic magic". You might breed some very good things, but if you're not seeing the good in them, you'll throw away some pretty interesting things. Joe Winchell had some very interesting results, some of which were suitable for florist production, a few for landscape and garden. Ralph Moore offered to put him in touch with people who could promote and market those types, but Joe was so narrowly focused on his exhibition HT, insulin needle, high centered form, he wasn't interested. He probably tossed some decent roses as a result. Even Ralph had to rely upon other peoples' visions for some of his creations. He was so focused on his minis, when he created Pink Powderpuff, his Hulthemias and other larger roses, his most frequent question was, "think someone would buy it?" 4. I have heard that if you plant seeds from a self-pollinated rose, that you won't get children like the parent. Why is that? Because you can't "know" for certain who the father is? or other? Both. Roses have more genes than humans. The possible traits expressed are much greater than what is possible between two people. Some of the lines imprint themselves heavily on the seedlings and have such characteristic traits, you can often look at the seedling and make a good educated guess who one parent was. Others, give such way out results, who could have guessed? Breed with Little Artist. 99% of its seedlings look very much like it, no matter what you crossed with it. Some roses are chameleons. They take on the other parent's characteristics so readily, they are very useful in getting other traits into "better" lines. Better being healthier, more vigorous, etc. Probably the best answer to that question is, when you raise a seed, it is sexual reproduction, which is never an identical genetic copy of the parent. With all those genetic possibilities behind the seed parent, even if it isn't a cross between two varieties, there are so many possibilities, the seeds can, or might not, look anything like the parent. But, some will. That's something you'll learn as you raise more seedlings. If you keep using some of the same roses each year, you develop a feel for what is possible from that rose and can eventually see it in its offspring. 5. I have read that each seed from a single hybridized hip will produce a different child. So should you plant as seeds from the same hip as possible, then try to find the "best" result. Then - do you just have that single plant to propogate from? Or might you be able to get multiple of a relatively "same" result from the same cross in the same hip? Different hips? Nope. Each seed is genetically distinct. There are only two instances I've ever read of where two, different roses, raised by different breeders, in different parts of the world have been deemed so similar, they were considered synonymous. That's two out of probably millions of seedlings, many thousands of introduced roses. When you raise a seedling you wish to replicate, you have to go back to that precise seedling to propagate from it. All of its siblings are going to differ from it enough to not be interchangeable. Once you begin researching the breeding lines on HMF, you will see that. 6. Can more than one rose be patented having the same parents? (Like 2 with Father = rose 1 and mother = rose 2) Absolutely! Each one is distinct, different. There are many instances of that. Oklahoma, Mr. Lincoln, Papa Meilland all have the same parents and all were patented. Each one is different. You're patenting that specific genetic combination, not all the possible combinations from those parents. 7. Rose pedigree research - are there resources that give access to see what children a particular rose has fathered or mothered ? Finding "magic" crosses? Yes. The laborious route is buying all the Modern Rose editions and then reading them. The fastest, easiest, most fun way is to buy a premium membership for HMF for $24 a year which gives you full access to all of that information on the site. It is INVALUABLE! Not only can you search for all the offspring of a particular rose, but you can easily follow breeding lines and often SEE color images of the results...at the click of a button. All for $2 a month! You'll love it! Reading what created what is fine, but SEEING what created what is so much more educational. 8. Any related advice would be greatly appreciated. Browse the Rose Hybridizers Association. Read the linked articles. Ask questions there and here. Research the roses which are really good where you are. Research their offspring. Research what is really bad where you are and look for common ancestors. Playboy is an extremely popular breeder. Playboy is addicted to rust in this climate. MOST of its offspring are, too. I avoid Playboy. I don't want to engineer rust into my line. It's virtually identical to breeding animals. If you know a particular 'stud' has health or behavioral issues, you avoid using it or its progeny. If you know strongly multiflora types are going to either be prone to mildew, RRD or chlorosis and any (or all) of those are issues where you are, avoid using those types. Pay attention to those roses which set their own hips without you. They are likely to be good seed parents. If a rose usually doesn't set seed, it may not be useful for you where you are as a seed parent. Iceberg doesn't set hips at all in the inland hot valleys. It sets hips like a bloody fruit tree where it's cooler and damper. Raise self set seed from the roses in your garden. What benefit is it to you to create seeds if you haven't learned to germinate them where you are? Practice on the freebies your roses provide you. They cost you virtually nothing. That will also help show you which of the hip setters also makes viable seed. Why waste resources pollinating a rose which won't set seed? Creating your own seed before learning how to germinate and grow them is like waiting to learn how to root or bud when you've finally gotten the material you've really wanted and waited for. Both are very much like waiting until the day of your huge vacation to finally buy the expensive, involved camera you've always wanted. None of them are going to do you much good because you haven't learned how to make them work, nor have you overcome the fear causing you to permit the situations to overwhelm you. Sure, if the stars align perfectly, you might have success, but how much more fun to stack the deck in your favor, learn how to make it all work then succeed in your early attempts? Initial failures can be overwhelming to many people. Fail at what doesn't matter first. Save your "creations" for when you KNOW how to make it work. Don't give up. Don't let it overwhelm you. Keep it simple, inexpensive and streamlined, unless you're the type of person who loves making the simple, complicated. That's totally valid, but the harder, more complicated and time consuming you make it, the less likely you will be to actually DO it. If it helps, I put together this entry on pollinating roses to answer questions several friends sent me. I hope the photos help. Please feel free to make use of any of it you desire, or not, your choice. There are many roads to success with this, just as there are in growing roses. Not all are suitable for each climate, nor individual. Keeping it simple, fun, inexpensive, makes it possible for me to pollinate a ton of things quickly all summer long. Of course, it resulted in far more seed than I can raise, but that affords the luxury of selecting those most important to me. I couldn't have done it had my process taken a lot of prep time. Find what works best with your habits, your logic, your mind and then just explore. You're going to love it! Kim Here is a link that might be useful: Pollinating roses

Hi Ed :-) Thanks for your response! I understand how diverse Hib R.S.'s offspring can be. I think that's why I'm drawn to growing out various crosses instead of buying named plants. It's exciting to imagine what they might look like and I'm looking forward (many months forward!) to witnessing their first blooms. I would love to hybridize my own. Maybe someday! But, currently, I have only two young plants: Purple Magic & Black Dragon. And I live in Maine with no greenhouse. Such a short season up here! I'd be very lucky to get a pod to maturity. I was just wondering if any others that purchase seed find so many that are not viable. Is it the norm? Here is my Black Dragon. I haven't had a bloom on the Purple Magic yet.

Brian, I will try to cover some of the possibilities. ON A SIMILIAR MATTER, DO I UNDERSTAND IT CORRECTLY, THAT A SPECIES CAN BE SELF INCOMPATIBLE OR TOTALLY THE OPPOSITE AND SELF SET SEED WITH RESULTING SEEDLINGS BEING IDENTICAL? Yes, and no. Compatibility within a species may be one of several different types, the most common involves what is called the S gene (often called the S locus). In diploids, individuals can only be heterozygous at the S gene and usually within the species there are many different forms of the S gene (the forms are called alleles). Perhaps as many as 25 alleles. Therefore individuals within the species might be S1/S2, others might be S3/S8, or S11/S12 or S2/S3 and so on. An example: an individual that was S1/S2 will not produce seed when pollinated with its own pollen (S1 or S2), it would produce abundant seed when pollinated by an individual that was S3/S4 (etc) and less abundantly if pollinated by an individual that was S2/S3 (since only the S3 pollen would work). Those would be the typical results. However, there could be individuals in the species that had lost, at least partially, the ability to distinguish pollen S-types and they might produce seeds from their own pollen. Also, some species that would be described as typically self-incompatible - may accept their own pollen when pollinated towards the end of their normal flowering season. For self-compatible species, selfing works and they produce seed. The seedlings characteristics depend completely on the genetic make-up (genotype) of the parent. The extent of visible differences between individuals in a species under natural circumstances varies. For example, some species have individuals with different flower colours eg the desert annual Linanthus parryae has some individuals with white flowers and some with blue flowers in the wild - many species have all individuals with the same flower colour. If one were to collect a blue-flowered individual Linanthus and self it one might find only blue offspring or one might find a mix of 3 blue to one white. If one were to collect a white-flowered individual from the wild and self-pollinate it one would only find white offspring. A species may be either self-incompatible or self-compatible. Either type of species may have individuals that are homozygous or heterozygous for particular characteristics, for example flower colour. A self-compatible species may have individuals that are fixed for red flower colour RR and when selfed produce only red offspring. A self-incompatible species may have individuals that are fixed for red flower colour RR (and although not able to be selfed usually) when selfing was successful (or when another RR individual was the other parent in a cross) would produce all red offspring. The genotype of the individuals does not depend on the self-compatibility (or lack of it) except for the single S-locus. If a particular hibiscus species or cultivar is available from multiple origins then the plants may differ in characteristics, including self-incompatibility. This is particularly possible when the plant is not a named/bred cultivar but is an introduction from plants directly collected from the 'wild'. When a plant is selfed and produces replicas of itself (in some manner) that indicates the plant is 'fixed' or homozygous for that characteristic. When a plant is selfed and it produces offspring showing a range of a particular characteristic then that indicates the parent plant was heterozygous for that character). Nasali Pink x Nasali Pink -> 50 pink : 50 cream is an unusual result. I will assume that Nasali Pink was selfed using normal pollinating precautions. The closest simple explanation would be that the ratio was close to 9:7 rather than 1:1. If it was 9:7 then the genetic description of the cross would be: Nasali Pink is AaBb, selfing AaBb x AaBb produces nine offspring that are A-B- where the - may be either, and seven offspring (three are aaB-, three are A-bb and one is aabb). An individual is cream if it has aa or bb or aabb. It is pink in all other cases. That would also mean that there are three kinds of cream. Crossing two creams (derived from Nasali Pink) together could give an enormous number of possible results. cream x cream from Nasali Pink ancestry might produce all cream offspring (aa x aa, or bb x bb or aabb x aabb) or it might produce all pink offspring (aaBB cream x AAbb cream -> AaBb pink. This is known in carnations and indicates that both the A and B gene are involved in the same pathway to create a particular pigment (or pigments). Many of the crosses of cream x cream would produce both pink and cream offspring in different ratios. Does a particular pollination (cross) cause the flower to wither and the pod to start to develop? Do most pods abort before maturing seeds? YES, CV X SCHIZOPETALUS I would interpret this to indicate that the schizopetalus pollen grew down the style and fertilized the ovule starting development of the seed but some incompatibility between the two parents (possibly chromosome mismatch) caused the seeds to abort. The schizopetalus pollen is compatible but the seed formed is not viable. Often due to triploidy of the embryo. If removed from the seed early enough and grown on tissue culture type media many such embryos prove to be viable (in other plant species) and grow into plants that flower. The fertility of such plants would be unguessable. Does a particular pollination (cross) cause the flower to wither but no pod starts to develop (just as if the flower was not pollinated at all)? YES, CV X ARNOTIANNUS AND CV x NASALI PINK. I would interpret this to mean that the arnotiannus and Nasali Pink pollen did not grow far enough down the style and did not fertilize the ovule. This suggests that those pollens are not compatible with CV. Does a particular pollination (cross) produce pods that develop to maturity but the seeds are soft (not mature) or empty or otherwise not normal? YES, BUT THIS HAPPENS AT TIMES WITH OTHER VARIETIES AS WELL. Does a particular pollination (cross) produce few pods with few seeds that appear mature but none of the seeds ever germinate? YES, BUT THIS HAPPENS AT TIMES WITH OTHER VARIETIES AS WELL In both these cases the pollen was compatible and managed to fertilize the ovules but the embryos were not viable. Possibly a chromosome mismatch (triploidy for example). Does a particular pollination (cross) produce offspring that are both pod and pollen sterile? YES, CV X SCHIZO LOOKS TO HAVE PRODUCED OFFSPRING THAT ARE NOT WILLING TO SET SEED USING INTER-RELATED POLLEN. ANOTHER CROSS USING ALBO LACINATUS POLLEN PRODUCED ALL OFFSPRING WITHOUT POLLEN SACS/NON-DEHISCING. ALSO, I HAVE YET TO SET SEED OR HAVE LUCK WITH POLLEN FROM THE SEEDLINGS OF NASALI PINK x SCHIZOPETALUS. The CV x Schizopetalus offspring might be 'triploids' and more or less both pod and pollen sterile. The same may be the case for the Nasali pink x Schizopetalus offspring if they also do not produce seedlings when used as pod parents. There is also the possibility of single genes affecting sterility for pod or pollen or both.