Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Bulbs => Galanthus => Topic started by: annew on February 26, 2013, 09:27:40 PM
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Finally, I've think I've managed to sort out the video of how to pollinate snowdrops, as I promised.
So this is Für Hagen - How could you leave it to the bees?
It was only when I did the video that I realised how obvious it ought to be to turn the flower upside down while removing the petals, to avoid losing the pollen before you need it. It was one of those "DOH!!" moments.
If you don't need to keep the flower intact, it's easier to remove the petals to get at the pollen, especially with double flowers, which have few stamens, usually fused to one or more inner segments.
It really is necessary to strip the flower before you pollinate it though. I also usually remove the stamens before dragging the stigma backwards over the pollen on the foil (or whatever you have collected the pollen on). Remember to label the flower with the parents of the cross.
If the flower has been stripped, there is no need to exclude insect pollinators. However, once the pod has swollen, and before the seedpods turn yellow, it is wise to bag the flower so you don't lose the seeds. I put the label inside the bag so when the seeds are ripe I can nip off the whole stem to bring in for sowing. I use cheap empty (unused) teabags for bagging, you will have to be brave and get the cheapest teabags available from the supermarket. Fancy pyramidal ones are no good for this so don't sacrifice your Teapigs.
The seeds are sown straight away about 3cm deep in pots, as for narcissus seeds.I hope this works. I'm afraid it's rather small and terrible resolution, so if anyone can advise me how to do it better, please do. You might have to wait for the progress bar to reach the end before it will run.
http://www.dryad-home.co.uk/pages/growing%20info.html (http://www.dryad-home.co.uk/pages/growing%20info.html)
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Rats, it was supposed to embed the video…you'll have to follow the link instead.
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Excellent Anne!
johnw
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excellent video
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Barry's put it onto Youtube. Maybe that will work better:
snowdrop pollination (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qyuB14euC4#)
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YAY!!!
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YAY!!!
Double Yay!!
That's super , Anne- thanks to you and to Barry
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Barry's put it onto Youtube. Maybe that will work better:
snowdrop pollination (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qyuB14euC4#)
Is it meant to be silent, or does it just not like my sound card?
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Thank you! I had read your description many times from the Galanthus January thread, but this video made it even more clear. :) It doesn't seem at all difficult. :)
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Is it meant to be silent, or does it just not like my sound card?
Yes, it's meant to be silent - you wouldn't want to hear what was being said! Also I haven't worked out how to add music etc.
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The silence concentrates the eye and the mind, Anne ... WONDERFUL. Many thanks.
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Anne, your video is really helpfull.
Sometime I need an idea to the first step.
Of course I can hear the bell ring ;).
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Very helpfull video Anne,thanks!
I'll try that on my drops this year.
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Excellent Anne very professional and your advice on cultivation for daffs is also very informative and interesting. Thanks
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Superb Anne !!!!
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Anne you have made a lot of people happy, but I would have loved to have heard the commentary ;D ;D
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Well, Classic FM was on in the background so the first part had some scary music. Then there was a lot of:
Can I start now? Yes, I started 30 seconds ago… Now your hand's in the way. Cut, CUT!!! Go, no hang on a minute..now go! No you went too soon - *****///***! etc etc
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;D ;D ;D
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In many plants hybrids are sterile. How is this in Galanthus?
Are 'S.Arnott' and 'Merlin' fertile, I had them flower for the first time last spring, but don't remember if they produced seeds. :-[
How about 'Primorse Warburg', is it fertile? I remember seeing somewhere in the forum pictures of seedlings where one parent was 'Wendy's Gold', so it must be a fertile yellow, which goes to my list. :)
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Hi Leena,
I haven't used S Arnott or Merlin, so am not sure, but there are many snowdrops that look like Merlin, so I think it will be fertile. All the yellows that I have tried are fertile - Wendy's Gold, Spindlestone Surprise, Primrose Warburg, Lutescens, Lady Elphinstone.
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Thank you Anne.
I think I will have to practise with common G.nivalis, which I have plenty,
or G.plicatus, and keep better eye on my other snowdrops to see if they are fertile:)
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In many plants hybrids are sterile. How is this in Galanthus?
Are 'S.Arnott' and 'Merlin' fertile, I had them flower for the first time last spring, but don't remember if they produced seeds. :-[
How about 'Primorse Warburg', is it fertile? I remember seeing somewhere in the forum pictures of seedlings where one parent was 'Wendy's Gold', so it must be a fertile yellow, which goes to my list. :)
The situation in galanthus is quite variable - some hybrids are reasonably fertile while others are sterile or almost completely sterile.
I have tried pollinating Merlin (a diploid hybrid, probably plicatus x elwesii) in the past and never got any seed set. S. Arnott (a triploid hybrid, presumably nivalis x plicatus, which should be highly sterile due to the combination of its hybrid nature and its triploid nature) does sometimes set a few viable seeds if a lot of flowers are pollinated - but the seedlings tend to be uninteresting small snowdrops, like poor versions of S. Arnott or ordinary nivalis types.
Primrose Warburg (presumably plicatus x sandersii) will set a few seeds if lots of flowers are pollinated, but only a few and you do have to pollinate a lot of flowers to get any seed in my experience - although that might be due to the kinds of crosses I've been trying and it might set seed more easily if different pollen was used. It needs to be crossed with another yellow to get yellow seedlings.
It's very much a question of, as you say, trying different crosses and seeing which cultivars are fertile and which are not.
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Anne, the proliferation of Merlin type cultivars is more likely to arise from repeats in gardens of the type of (presumably) plicatus x elwesii cross that produced Merlin rather than seedlings from Merlin, which has never set seed for me despite repeated attempts to use it in crosses.
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Thanks, Martin, I thought we could rely on you.
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Martin can you tell me if the green tips in viridipice is recessive?
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Martin can you tell me if the green tips in viridipice is recessive?
I'm not sure what's going on with inheritance of green tips and virescens because I haven't done enough in those areas in the past to get any definite clues. It's looking to me like virescens may be recessive but that green tips may not necessarily be recessive as green tips seems to be quite easily passed on to seedlings (though not always! :( And the fact that green tips can come and go from season to season doesn't help either!)
What is known is that Viridapice (and at least some other green tips) are triploids so are not very fertile, although they will sometimes give a seed or two. I've never got any seed from Viridapice, which fits with its low-fertility triploid nature, so the best bet if you want to use Viridapice is to use its pollen on other snowdrops (green tips preferably but perhaps also non-green-tips as an experiment).
Sorry not to be more helpful, but the drops aren't very helpful a lot of the time!
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I'm not sure what's going on with inheritance of green tips and virescens because I haven't done enough in those areas in the past to get any definite clues. It's looking to me like virescens may be recessive but that green tips may not necessarily be recessive as green tips seems to be quite easily passed on to seedlings (though not always! :( And the fact that green tips can come and go from season to season doesn't help either!)
What is known is that Viridapice (and at least some other green tips) are triploids so are not very fertile, although they will sometimes give a seed or two. I've never got any seed from Viridapice, which fits with its low-fertility triploid nature, so the best bet if you want to use Viridapice is to use its pollen on other snowdrops (green tips preferably but perhaps also non-green-tips as an experiment).
Sorry not to be more helpful, but the drops aren't very helpful a lot of the time!
Martin that is very helpful...Thank you.I have done the backcross using viridipice as the pod parent and pollen donor.
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The situation in galanthus is quite variable - some hybrids are reasonably fertile while others are sterile or almost completely sterile.
Thank you. :)
Also for the information about 'Merlin', I was afraid it couldn't be so easy. :)
Can you name some reasonable fertile hybrids?
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Leena, the hybrid cultivars tend not to be very fertile. The best bet is to use really good selected, named forms of the species, good elwesii, plicatus and gracilis especially and use these to cross and create hybrids, with the resultant hybrid vigour.
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Thank you. :)
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What a very interesting and valuable discussion. I have done no deliberate hybridisation of snowdrops, though Anne's cross between 'yellows' certainly tempts me to try (!), but just from observing the snowdrops in our garden, the only varieties regularly setting seed and producing seedlings are 'Gerard Parker', 'Trym', 'Wendy's Gold', 'Percy Picton', ikariae (but not woronowii), and one form of reginae-olgae, and nivalis itself, all straight species. A few oddball hybrids appear from time to time and presumably the more snowdrops you grow, and the longer you grow them, the more this is likely to happen (eg: I have one which might have x allenii in its make-up?). With the incredible variety of snowdrops already grown it seems hard to imagine what to aim for from controlled crosses, with the obvious exception of the yellows. Plants that actually crop up in individual gardens and stand the test of time are likely to make the best plants. On the other hand it could be fun to see what happens if you cross 'Cicely Hall' with a yellow and work on from this, or alternatively develop the poculiform habit. It just shows how incredibly exciting snowdrops are in whatever direction you take them.
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Tim, my main aim is tall, large-flowered, strong-growing garden plants that will thrive anywhere, with strong weather-resistant non-flopping scapes. Classic snowdrop flower shapes is what I'm going for, with a whole range of criteria for improvements, such as thick-petalled and very bright white flowers, strong markings, good scent, a tendency to open even in cold and dull weather, etc. Leaves reasonably short at flowering so they don't hide the flowers. And of course healthy disease-resistant cultivars, with any that show a tendency to being prone to disease or weak growing sent to the compost heap. And I've still missed out all kinds of more minor attributes that I look for. Even in trying to breed this kind of classic-shaped good garden garden snowdrop I'm finding there are sooooo many things to take into account that it can start to do your head in ;D
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Just realised I could have summed all of that up much more succinctly by simply saying that what I want to end up with is snowdrop cultivars that could be awarded both a FCC and an AGM (do they still award the FCC?) A tad ambitious, I know. But I have some promising contenders in the pipeline already, so time will tell.
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Whilst Martin's aim is laudable and sensible, I cannot help but think that there may be exotic 'novelty' snowdrops on the horizon. We seem to be moving towards increasingly yellow snowdrops so a very yellow one, like a yellow version of 'Green Tear', might be a possible result from a prolonged breeding program.
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Crack on then, Alan!
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Indeed, Alan. I'm sure there'll be all kinds of exciting developments in the breeding of less traditional snowdrop types in the long term. I didn't mean to disparage snowdrop 'novelties' and new forms. It's just that my own breeding aims tend mainly towards the classic snowdrop form for a couple of reasons:
a) When I grew up with snowdrops in my parents' garden and started with them in my own gardens, there were pretty much only the classic snowdrop cultivar types around apart from the species - Atkinsii, Arnott, Straffan, Merlin, Atom, John Gray etc. so the classic snowdrop types are my first love and what I naturally seek to improve on (both in size and looks and in vigour, weather resistance and disease resistance.
b) Limited access to breeding material of the rarer and most expensive snowdrop novelties - not having had the spare time to build up networks of knowledgeable snowdrop growing friends from whom to beg or swap pollen or bulbs of the newest rareties, and not having the spare cash to buy the rarest novelties when they sell for sky-high prices, has limited my ability to play around with many of the newest things on the block.
b) is a problem that seems to be particularly acute for breeders in the snowdrop world - the difficulty in obtaining material of the latest developments with interesting breeding potential, due to the combination of how painfully slow these are to bulk up and become distributed and the very high prices that they've started to command as a result. It's one reason that I often beg pollen rather than bulbs, as giving away pollen is far less of a sacrifice for a grower with a rare snowdrop.
The irony is that often you'll need a fair number of bulbs of a particular novelty (e.g. a good poc like E.A. Bowles) to get enough pollen or seed if (as many snowdrops are) the thing you want to breed with is shy in producing pollen and/or seeds. Successful development of a micro-prop system for rare snowdrops would make my life a lot easier!
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Martin - I wonder if it might be an idea to use platyphyllus in your breeding; perhaps a separate line and with what ie the question. I wonder if platy is more resistant to stag given its wet natural nabitat.
Perhpas Anne might tell us if cyclamineus adds stag resistance to Narcissus hybrids given its love of wet to moist sites as well.
The whole line of thought may be unfounded of course.
johnw - blowy while a huge storm churns south of us & on out to sea.
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Martin, I know holders of collections of Galanthus, even some National Collection holders, who have never expressed (to me) any interest in breeding new snowdrops. Many seem to be busy people who may not have time to collect pollen on your behalf but you might be able to build a relationship to the point where they would give access to their collection to allow you to gather pollen yourself. My point is that you should not necessarily be put off by the high prices and lack of general availability of novel snowdrops; there may be ways around this.
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Tim, my main aim is tall, large-flowered, strong-growing garden plants that will thrive anywhere, with strong weather-resistant non-flopping scapes. Classic snowdrop flower shapes is what I'm going for, with a whole range of criteria for improvements, such as thick-petalled and very bright white flowers, strong markings, good scent, a tendency to open even in cold and dull weather, etc. Leaves reasonably short at flowering so they don't hide the flowers. And of course healthy disease-resistant cultivars, with any that show a tendency to being prone to disease or weak growing sent to the compost heap.
This sounds like a perfect plant :). And to me also important thing is a snowdrop which would be adapted to our weather in Finland, where the snow melts away in April, so very early flowering varieties start to flower inside the snow and suffer in the long run (I think).
I read somewhere that many G.plicatus are short lived and prone to disease. Is this true?
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The idea of an AGM FCC plant sounds good - a bit like a very beautiful actress winning an Oscar, marvellous to see but a little unreal, or at least unattainable for most of us. Snowdrops go in two directions, the wonder of novelty, and the steadiness of being good garden plants. It's interesting that something like 'S. Arnott', which is effectively sterile and doesn't produce seed, has been such a good plant for so long, so I suppose that goes back to Martin's comment about the 'classical' snowdrops - those classical features must be the one's to really aim for if breeding for longevity, but a yellow 'Green Tear' if you want to hit the headlines! 'Wendy's Gold' and 'Cicely Hall' are both superb plants in my garden so maybe I should go back to that idea of seeing if they will cross - it really would be an exciting project and Anne's video a wonderful inspiration.
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Martin's aim is a very noble one, and when he finds ones he thinks are worthy and names them, they'll probably be around a lot longer than the ones we think of as novelties now. My primary aim when breeding is quite different - it's fun! I like to cross things just to see what will happen, or to see if I can get a particular form I fancy by guessing which parents to use - not scientific or worthy at all. If people want to grow them for fun, I don't consider it any different from buying a Dionysia knowing you will probably kill it before its next flowering season - if you buy a snowdrop (even pricey ones are cheaper than a meal for two in a modestly priced restaurant), you can enjoy it, and even have it increase for little effort by you, and you're much more likely to enjoy it for a number of years than your Dionysia.
Of course - IF YOU'VE MADE IT YOURSELF - it won't have cost you anything! ;D
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By the way, Martin, I'm happy to send you pollen of anything you fancy - pm me for a list of cultivars I grow.
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Anne, you make me sound like some kind of snowdrop breeding saint! ;D I'm just dabbling pollen around and growing on the results.
Thanks for the suggestions and offers re pollen. Lack of enough spare time and not having made lots of contacts with other snowdrop growers are the problems even with trying to locate and beg useful pollen from the newest snowdrop discoveries - plus I don't really like pestering people, even if I know them, let alone when they don't know me from Adam.
I do manage to get my hands on the odd new discovery (as bulb or pollen) if it has real breeding potential, it's just that when I started breeding I mostly had access to classical types so that's what I used and that's what I've continued to concentrate on, so it's the main thrust of what's coming out the other end now.
I've also been concentrating on trying to get polyploids - triploids and tetraploids - for increased size and vigour, but that's proving a long, slow process due to the fact that the only way to do it (since there are almost no known tetraploid snowdrops) is to use known triploids, which are very infertile or virtually sterile, so very difficult to breed with - involving lots and lots of repeat crosses, often with no seeds to show for it. (Tim, S. Arnott is a hybrid triploid. which accounts for its vigour and longevity).
Oh well, onwards and upwards.
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Empty tea bags, brilliant!!! Last year I got really frustrated making tiny little cloth bags for them although a couple disappeared overnight, I have no idea why. You are clever, thanks.
Bronwyn
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Should the flower stay on the plant and in the ground during this process? Has if been removed just for the purpose of the video? I thought the seed head had to stay on the plant for as long as possible. Sorry if this is a real newbie question and you are all yawning at me.
Thanks Bronwyn
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Just for the video, Bronwen. I only pick it when the seedpod is about to shed the seeds (you can feel it go squidgy through the bag).