Blog

To access previous entries click here:

Cutting Edge Genetics

I admit that I felt inspired yesterday after receiving comments on my post about losing southern daylilies. It feels a relief to share thoughts and frustrations on what to others, outside of our daylily bubble, is not a particularly interesting topic. I count many local gardeners as my friends, but few specialize in daylilies and none hybridize. What a relief to find a group who is interested in pontificating about both!

Yesterday Paul Lewis used the phrase cutting edge genetics in his comment. Today I would like to deconstruct that expression and try to get at what is meant by that. 

The term cutting edge, to me, indicates something that is both new and superior to what was. This begs the question, can genetics be cutting edge? Genetics is a field of study. Can we say cutting edge physics? biology? literature? 

Actually, yes, we can... and when we do we are usually referring to what is new and perhaps more complicated and esoteric, but not necessarily what is superior, although that is sometimes implied. Quantum physics is a new field, but it's not superior to mechanical physics.  Contemporary literature, even that lauded as brilliant and amazing, isn't necessarily superior to all its predecessors. 

So perhaps cutting edge genetics is really just a term that means new and novel genetics--or, more specifically, genetic code that is sequenced in a new way that produces a specific behavioral and/or phenotypical trait not previously seen in a daylily. But I think it's important that we recognize that what is novel is not always superior, and is sometimes, in fact, inferior to what has been previously introduced.

Take Nicole DeVito's, Indefinable. We all know it. That daylily started a craze in creating variegated daylilies. Pink Stripes preceded Indefinable, but Pink Stripes is a dip, and is simply striped, as opposed to Indefinable's broken splotches of yellow and magenta. (This is not to diss Pink Stripes, which is a superior plant in so many ways. It's hardy. It multiplies readily. It's fertile.)

But we all love Indefinable. We all paid a gazillion dollars to obtain it. We all coddle it to keep it alive. We all dream of introducing a daylily as beautiful as that one. 

The thing is, though, as most of you know, Indefinable is a flawed plant in many ways. It is not hardy (which is a big flaw in my mind ;), it is not robust and vigorous even when given the most loving care and brought inside for the winter, it is not quick to bloom and it is very persnickety about setting seed. So while I would agree that Indefinable is cutting edge genetically, it is only cutting edge in that its color mutation is not one that has been seen before. The plant itself is an inferior plant in most other ways. 

A goal has been to take the broken color feature of Indefinable and breed it into a more robust, hardy plant. This has been done, now, by a few hybridizers. Rich Howard comes to mind. :) I don't own one of Rich's Indefinable babies yet, so I can't speak to what they are like outside of the beautiful flower, but I still question whether those genetics are superior, or whether those genetics are simply new phenotypically while exhibiting more classicallysuperior traits like good habit and hardiness. 

All of this to say:

Most of us equate a new look with superior genetics. 

They aren't the same thing.

I think what many of us aim to do is create daylilies with a new look, that ALSO exhibit the superior (and classic, as in, not new) genetic traits of hardiness, vigor, great branching and bud count, resistance to disease/rust, and an attractive habit. Very few hybridize with the hope of creating superiority in terms of the latter characteristics with little or no attention paid to phenotype. Brian Reeder of Sundragon Daylilies comes to mind. 

Like many, I am a sucker for a new look. But I think we need to be careful about labeling those southern beauties that we have to treat with kid gloves to insure their survival as "cutting edge" genetically or otherwise. As hybridizers, we still will want to obtain those plants so we can get to work translating that new look into something we know will actually thrive (not just survive) in any horticultural zone. But when appealing to daylily enthusiasts who aim to collect and show off their plants as opposed to use them solely in hybridizing, I think we have to be careful about using such terms as cutting edge in common parlance. 

We also need to be honest about the plant we are introducing. If it's not hardy, that's fine! But tell the world it's not hardy. It's quite telling that we sell a plant by only showing a picture of its flower on the very best day it's ever had, and sometimes using filters that belie its actually colors. It is possible to be honest, and I think it's also our responsibility as hybridizers. Some have started to do this. I noted Subhana Ansari (Flourishing Daylilies) indicates exactly where her lilies have survived and where they have not on her website. 

Thoughts?

This is Grossman's Prince of Camelot. It has beautiful flowers and is a robust plant. 

Awaiting Bloom

In late May there is a lull in my garden. The weigela, iris and golden alexanders are in bloom, but mostly the garden is just green. The peony, foxglove and rose will soon explode, and the petunias and impatiens I grew from seed in my basement, though still very small, are producing small pockets of color. But mostly I am waiting and staring out across a sea of green. 

What I want is this: I want my daylilies to bloom. 

I still have a month until they begin. 

I've been contemplating. One way to bring excitement to my gardening days earlier in the summer is to get a greenhouse. Northern hybridizers with greenhouses are able to have a first crossing "season" in May and early June and a second in July when the daylilies bloom outdoors.

But I'm fairly certain a greenhouse is not in my future, at least while I'm living n Massachusetts. Eventually Andy and I will retire to Maine, and I know I will have a greenhouse then, but for the next five years I am both stuck in Massachusetts and also stuck without a greenhouse. 

So what to do? 

I think the answer is to expand my hybridizing. 

Here's what this. means: Bearded iris, baby.

Hybridizing bearded iris does not appear to be as simple as hybridizing daylilies. For one thing, iris closet their sexuality more so than the exhibitionist daylily and lilium. With iris, it took me a bit of time to even locate the stamens, and I had to actually watch a video in order to figure out the whole "stigmatic lip" thing. Further, it seems that iris pollen is more stealth than that of lilies. The stamens are fairly easy to locate now that I know where to look, but I have yet to find an iris with a lot of pollen on any of its anthers. 

Figuring out out how to pollinate an iris led me down a slippery hybridizing slope. It's raining today, so instead of weeding and puttering about the garden I spent the morning researching how to pollinate lupine (not that hard), zinnia and echinacea (seems nearly impossible) and lilium. Of those three I am most interested in echinacea, but I think they might be too complicated for me to go down that road. For one thing, every one of those little disc florets on a "single" echinacea flowerhead has its own stigma and anther, and so each can make a seed. This is great for reproduction, but not so great if you're trying to control making a hybrid without self-contamination of pollen. Honestly, I don't even get how one would do it! 

Hybridizing lilium seems a lot like hybridizing daylily, except that apparently there is a lot of cross-pollen contamination that occurs because of bees and the fact that ornamental lilies have about a ton of pollen on each anther. In order to deal with this hybridizers place tinfoil over the fertilized stigma and then remove all the flower's stamens. I couldn't find any information on how long it takes a baby lily to grow a huge, flowering bulb. That is something I wonder. Does it take  2 years? 4 years? more?

Anyway, I plan to try my hand at hybridizing iris next season. It's a bit too late this season: I have only a few iris to use and they are all boring. What this means is that I can buy some cool iris this summer. :) I'll also try to hybridize a few ornamental lilies this summer. I've always loved the oriental and orienpet lilies, so I have quite a collection already to use in hybridizing.

-----

Last fall I introduced two daylilies with the AHS. I should have waited, because I don't have enough of either plant to sell any fans yet, but I couldn't help myself. I wanted to see how the whole process worked. 

My fall, 2020 intros: