It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 56
zen_man
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It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 15
Comments (100)pansyloverandgrower, "So from what I understand, is that you can take cuttings from zinnias and produce a plant from them? I did not know you could do that." That's not surprising. Most books on plant propagation don't list zinnias as something that you can grow from cuttings. You do need to use some Physan 20 to keep the cuttings from rotting, and of course some rooting hormone and humidity domes to keep the cuttings from wilting until they have time to strike some roots (about 10 days). So I guess you could say that it is not easy to grow zinnias from cuttings, but it can be done. I do it primarily to "rescue" good breeder zinnias from an impending killing frost. And, in the case of my "Dinosaur Zinnia", I used cuttings to provide a greater seed yield than was possible from a single plant. Zinnia cuttings propagation details and pictures were provided in earlier parts of this message series. "...especially the tissue culture!" Ah, yes. The tissue culture. Apparently that is considerably more difficult than growing zinnias from cuttings. I have actually successfully taken cuttings from zinnia plants that were themselves grown from cuttings. But so far my attempts at micropropagation of zinnias from tissue culture have failed. Right now I am concentrating on preparing and planting more outdoor seedbeds for my zinnias, so my tissue culture experiments are "on hold" right now. But I consider it an imperative that I learn to grow zinnias from tissue cultures. My initial attempts used a technique that works for African Violet leaf disc explants, but apparently zinnia tissue needs stronger plant growth hormones than African Violet leaves need. That is not too surprising, because some growers propagate African Violets from leaves without using tissue culture. I plan to use stronger doses of BAP (benzylaminopurine) and also try TDZ (thidiazuron) to stimulate shoot production from zinnia callus tissue. I will report on my progress when it occurs. Tissue culture could be very helpful in creating new strains of zinnias. "I also need your help here...I have some zinnias, about 1.5 months old, 11 of them. they are very small and have not bloomed yet: ..." See my response to your separate message thread. I think you may be trying to grow zinnias under conditions that are more challenging than what most of us face. Actually, zinnias are considered easy to grow in most climates. But you may need some special techniques if you are living in Washington state, because zinnias need full sun. Please give us some more information about your zinnia growing situation. Your description of your plants sounds very "un-zinnia-like". If possible, could you post a picture of them? ZM...See MoreIt can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 49
Comments (102)Hello everyone, Well, we did get that expected rain. It came with some winds, but I don't see any obvious wind damage. It is now comfortably cool outside, but very wet. I will shuck zinnia seeds indoors until things dry off a bit. This is one of those current narrow petaled specimens.The tubes are light colored, but unfortunately not white. This is a closer look at some of the petal ends.There is actually quite a bit of variation in the end-of-petal "flare". That suggests that the flares may be partially developmental rather than genetic. The embryo inside the green seed at the base of each petal would be genetically different if it had been fertilized by a pollen grain, either from this plant or from a different one, because it would have been produced by the cellular process known as meiosis, which recombines the genes. In the more likely probability that the embryos are not fertilized at this stage, the cells in the petal flares are produced by mitosis and are genetically the same as the cells in other parts of the bloom, so the variations in the petal-end flares would be developmental and not genetic. Which raises questions as to which of the many variations we see in zinnias are developmental and not genetic. At some time during the coming Winter I hope to purchase a stereo microscope with a camera mount, so that I can take micro-photographs of some of my indoor zinnias. It will not be capable of seeing chromosomes (that takes a serious high-power laboratory grade microscope), but it will hopefully be capable of seeing details like leaf stomata or leaf hairs, from which you can hopefully deduce whether the plant is diploid or tetraploid. That is because I want to develop the capability of producing some triploid zinnias, and to do that it is almost a requirement that I be able to determine the "ploidy" of a zinnia by observation. And the microscope will let me study and photograph my zinnias in more detail. I continue to see little creatures that I refer to as "micro insects". I am curious about them. More later. Namaste. ZM...See MoreIt can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 52
Comments (109)Hello roxy, " The soil we have is not ideal ("podzolic") so I dug it out and added compost and garden soil to help encourage them along. " I was unfamiliar with "podzolic" soil, so referred to the Wikipedia article on Podzol soil A common misconception in Australia is that your plants don't need phosphorous and apparently your soils are deficient in phosphorous. The fact is that plants do need phosphorous, as well as many other things. Zinnias are easy to grow. They come up in only a few days and develop rapidly to produce first blooms in about 6 weeks. " Unfortunately there's not a lot of in-ground space back there so may end up planting in pots, which I've never done before. Any advice there? " Fill your containers with quality potting mix. Hopefully you have MiracleGro products available "down under". Their potting mix is a known thing and zinnias do well using MiracleGro Tomato food soluble nutrients. Hopefully your water supply is not harmful to plants. I apply a foliar feed using one tablespoon (or less--it is better to use too little than too much) of soluble MiracleGro Tomato Food per gallon of water. I use the Tomato Food formula because it has more Magnesium, which is a component of chlorophyll. I anticipate that we will continue this discussion, because there are quite a few issues with gardening in Australia. It's Fall here, so it is Spring for you. And your water swirls down the drain the wrong way (grin). ZM (not associated with any product or vendor mentioned or linked)...See MoreIt can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 53
Comments (103)Hello four, " "Modified", that is. Do they have nectar? " Some of them have nectar, the ones I have observed with butterflies, skippers, bees, or day-flying moths feeding on them. I have no way of knowing whether my indoor specimens have nectar or not. I think they probably do have nectar. Just no butterflies to confirm that. " If the florets have a reasonable amount of nectar, then the volume of nectar in that one flower would be a butterflies' bonanza. " I have taken a few tubular zinnia petals apart, and the amount of nectar I find in each petal is relatively small. I would not describe it as a drop, but something more like a "micro-drop". Zinnias always attract a bunch of butterflies and such, but I think there are probably other flowers that have more volume of nectar. I am of the opinion that you have to be careful what you wish for. I still remember that freakish zinnia bloom that had so much nectar, and the tiny ants that were attracted to it in such scary numbers. ZM...See Morezen_man
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