Hybridizers: Questions about hybrids, 1 by Zen_Man

Zen_Man wrote:
Corey,

Thanks for the seed offer. I don't need any right now, because I am concentrating on planting breeder seeds that I saved, including some from that "explosion in a paint factory". Who knows what they will look like? At least they seem to be germinating well. Not all of my saved seeds do, for reasons that I don't fully understand. Some seeds that I saved in 2006 are germinating well, while some that I saved last year are "zero-germing". There doesn't seem to be any logic to it. I probably should buy a small refrigerator to store my zinnia seeds in. Currently I just keep them in Ziploc bags at room temperature.

I purchased some 2011 Hazzard's seeds, including a bunch of White Cactus flowered, some Benary's Giant White, some Oklahoma White, and some White Gems. I plan to have a separate bed of white zinnias for selecting and inter-crossing, in an attempt to get some significantly better white zinnias. That bed will be about 50 feet from the nearest zinnia bed, hopefully to minimize cross-pollination by bees.

I will carry some choice white pollen over to other zinnia beds, because crosses with white do look good, although they produce pastels and, as far as I know, never white. If you stop to think about it, white is a kind of unique zinnia color, because I don't think there is any white pigment in zinnias. I would be curious to know how zinnias do "make white". Maybe it's tiny air bubbles, or special reflective petal cells.

The zinnia in this picture was from a white female "toothy" zinnia that was crossed with some other pink or rose colored zinnia. I like the "toothy" flower form, and I save seeds from them and inter-cross toothies with other toothies. Eventually, hopefully, I will have a Toothy Zinnia strain in all colors. In the process, I hope that some extremely toothy specimens will appear.

ZM