2016 Diary Episode 12 - Hybridising, Final
Potting and Growing On
General information to start with
–
Apart from the multi-purpose compost I have used to prick them out
in and pot them up with, my seedlings have had no additional feed
apart from a foliar feed using phostrogen.
This may sound daft but I have found that watering a seedling is
totally opposite to that of watering a tuber from a “root” point of
view. With a “tuber” you are careful with the usage of water until
your root system is developed so I thought the same principle would
apply to a seedling, but what I found was the opposite.
I thought my seedlings were just standing still then the following
happened, I was rushing to water some cuttings one night when I
accidently watered a seedling. What I found the next day to my
amazement was the change in that one seedling compared to the rest –
so I started throwing water at them so to speak and the increased
growth rate was quite drastic. You could say this was one of those
Eureka moments.
Wednesday
8th June –
Today's the day I potted Robert Bryce’s Moira Callan over Nichola
Coates crosses up from 3 inch pots into 4 or 5 inch pots as the leaves were
big enough. As daft as it sounds what did surprise me was the
difference in root structures, all the cuttings looked the same from above
ground but differed so much underground. You can see a well rooted
example to the picture left. Well depending on how the root
structure looked made my decision on whether to pot the others into a 5
inch or a 4 inch pot.
Tuesday 14th June
–
Today I potted up my Joan Bryce over Tequila Sunrise crosses from 3
inch pots into 5 inch pots. Just as above depending on the root
structure made my decision whether to put into a 5 inch or a
4 inch pot. In total 44 seedlings were potted up and 17 were held
back to grow a little bigger.
Saturday 25th June
-
They are not growing as quick as I thought they would, so I had a
word with Robert Bryce before we set off to visit both “Dodgy” Dave
Weatherby and Terry Tasker. He stated he was suffering as well and
it’s down to the weather we are having. This meant I was not the
only one and at least I now had an idea it what was happening.
Robert also said that he might not flower most of his seedlings this
year but instead aim for them to produce tubers and flower them next
year.
Thursday 7th July
–
Today I gave them a feed of Chempak No 3 to try and get them to
move.
Thursday 14th July
–
My seedlings are now starting to move / grow so I have spaced them
out a bit to give them some room to “breathe” so to speak.
This meant I had to clear a number of plants out of my propagating
greenhouse, that just leaves a number of young cuttings remaining. Once
these get a little bigger they will go outside as well. The ones
that that were put outside to give my seedlings room were the ones
that were badly affected by the sun as you can see by the picture to
the right.
When I spaced them out I checked each individual seedling for any of
its original “baby” leafs that have fallen, as I
did
not any to rot back with the potential to cause additional rot
on the seedling.
As you can see from the picture to the left a few seedlings are now
starting to produce buds. The first 2 buds will
be nipped out and I will be looking to flower the third bud.
As you can see by the picture to the right these seedlings are the
stragglers, so I am not going to flower them this year, but aim to
get them to produce what I can only call a cutting tuber. These then
can be flowered and enjoyed next year.
As
you can see by the picture to the left you can see that 2 different
seedlings are side by side in this pot.
As you can see by the picture to the right I have some pots
that have 2 seedlings growing in them. I have put
some small seedlings in with bigger ones, just to give them the
choice of either survive or not.
Just out of curiosity I uncovered one of the
seedlings to see what the base of the stem was
looking
like and as you can see by the picture to the left a
small tuber is starting to develop.
Sunday 31st July
–
Today I went through all my seedlings and spaced them out again and
checked for any leaves that has fallen off, then gave them a feed
of
Chempak No 3.
Now I do know that some growers have hybridised using Tequila
Sunrise and ended up with a lot of deep orange to red flowers.
As you can see by the picture to the left I can defiantly see two
distinct colour buds forming on my Joan Bryce over Tequila Sunrise
cross.
I have now taken at least 2 buds off a number of seedlings, so I am
going to let them flower on the 3rd bud.
How did I keep track of how many buds I had taken
off each seedling considering I had over a hundred growing – I used
plastic drinking straws and every time I took a bud I cut a piece
off the straw and just put it in the top of the pot, then when I had
2 in a pot I stuck a bamboo barbecue skewer at the back of the
pot so I knew not to pull any more buds off – this may sound a long
winded way of doing it but at the time it was a quick and easy way
for me.
Sunday 6th August
–
Today I once again went through all my seedlings one by one to check
for any leaves that had fallen off and to remove any more buds if
required.
From my Joan Bryce over Tequila Sunrise cross I would say about 50%
look alright as a small plant. The other 50% are a mixture of slow
growing seedlings and those suffering damage from the spell of hot
weather we had.
The 30 seedings of Moira Callan over Nichola Coates have had their 2nd
buds removed and are now being allowed to flower.
Sunday 21st August
-
My Joan Bryce over Tequila Sunrise cross seedlings are starting to
move now and so are the stragglers from this cross (see picture to
the right).
Tuesday 23rd August
–
Now I am being able to see the potential colour of the flower by the
developing bud.
The picture to the left shows a developing bud that is red but has
the petal shape of Joan Bryce.
The picture to the right has a developing bud that is red but looks
to have a wavy edge to the petal.
The picture to the left show’s a different colour of bud
developing hopefully a yellow that I started this journey looking
for.
Tuesday 23rd August
–
As you can see my seedling stragglers are growing
a little now, I only want to achieve a cutting tuber under these
seedling as they can be flowered next year.
Until next time….
