Blue Picotee X Minibar Rose

Some of you may remember about 5 years ago the time I sprayed my Dbl. Blue Picotee plant with Messenger. There happened to be a bud on the plant that would open the next day. What bloomed was something very alien and subsequent blooms were just as weird. In order to save some of the mutant genes, the only other MG I had growing was Minibar Rose. I was only able to get 3 seeds.

For those who might be interested in reading about it, here are the links:

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/606218/

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/607950/

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/607268/

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/643338/

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/655277/

This year I'm growing out some of the F2 and for the first time F3 Seeds. Here is what's happening.

Fascinating and lovely!

X,

That's rather interesting what you are getting in blooms with the F3 vines! What do the leaves look like on them?

I'll get some pictures of the leaves tomorrow.

Today's F2

WOW! I don't think I've ever seen this before!

Lovely and interesting blooms X.

Thanks! I love getting up in the morning just to see what bloomed! This last one was amazing!

X- nice crosses and progenies.

This year, I'm attempting an F1 grow-out involving (early call pink x Akatsuki no Umi) x Tie-dye pink. Here is the layout.

Tony

The first cross involves the flowers in the middle and the right in the previous picture. The F1 results are as follows.

The F1 is then crossed with tie-dye pink. Tie-dye pink is the female parent in this case.


X- I can't get over that variation from your F2 results

Here is my 3-way cross in progress. I has the varigated phenotype from mother, tie-dye pink or from grandpa Akatsuki no Umi. It also retains it's ordinary wild leaf phenotype from grandma, early call pink.

Tony

This message was edited Apr 29, 2011 7:21 PM

I really love that F1 blue with the scalloped picotee edges! That is definitely a winner!

Beautiful and interesting experiments here. I am glad I browsed by, thank you.

This seems like it will be a hot one to me. The folliage of minibar ++++ and the size
of minibar ++++ and color varieties ++++ , all rolled into a table top plant. This group has a lot of promise.

If you back cross , you could end up with a show stopping line here. Thanks for the info.
Frank

Back cross? I'm not familiar with that .. I'm thinking you mean pollinate with one of the original parent plants? If that's the case, I just happen to be growing out some Minibar & Blue Picotee this year!

Yes. Sometimes breeders do this to increase the desirable characteristics they get in their grow outs. It sounds like that is what you are doing. My family has numerous plant breeders, and I sometimes get lost with terms like double cross and double back cross, etc. This group looks real promising. Good luck. Frank

Here is an update of my 3-way cross, (early call pink x Akatsuki no Umi) x Tie-dye pink.

Here is an F2 grow-out of another 3-way cross I created involving, (early call pink x early call blue) large-flowered light pink and white blizzard NOID. seedlings just got finished popping up. Progeny = 25 individuals. hopefully everything works out well and I can get a lot of variation like your F2's, X.

Tony

X, I've got a couple of your crosses growing and hopefully will bloom soon, I'll post the photos here so you can have them added to the growouts.
A.

X - Do the leaves on those vines look similar? Or are there variations on the foliage, too?

I've got some of X's crosses on my flicker from three years ago, now the leaves on four seeds are all different, one has the variegation and the leaf structure of Mini-bar rose, the other has a little bit of variegation and flat leaves and longer vine, then the third one has solid green leaves, and yet another one has the small crinkled leaves of the platycodon and variegation, so I don't know what they will look like on these ones. The ones I have are F3s now.

That's really interesting, Antoinette! I wonder if X has had the similar results on her foliage?

Oddly enough, the leaves on the BPXMB - F2 & F3 were turning a bronze color. The new leaves coming out on both look the normal color. At the moment I'm in between flushes.

These are F2.

This message was edited May 5, 2011 7:17 AM

Very Pretty!

X - Oh my! That is really neat!!! I wonder what caused those bronze leaves? Beautiful!!! Is the leaf shape the same for the different vines?

It's basically the same but varies in roundness and points.

X - Most interesting your cross and the specifics about it! :-)

Thanks .. in the picture above with the bronze leaves you can see some of the variations I mentioned about roundness and points.

Well yesterday was apparently exciting and I missed it because it was pouring rain! This morning I discovered an F2 that had split petals .. at first I thought is was just tearing but it appears way too symmetrical for tears (though some of it had torn). This is definitely a Double Blue Picotee trait.

Then even a BIGGER surprise was a shredded one .. unfortunately this single plant had lost it's tag so I don't know if it's an F2 or F3 but there are two distinctly different flowers from the same plant. The one on the right is reminiscent of the deformed flower on the parent plant which means the the deformed genes are in the genome!!!!! The one on the left is looks like pure Double Blue Picotee. also on the shredded one I did not see any viable looking pollen on the anthers because it was soaking wet nor could I see anything that looked like a pistil.

This is definitely an F2 - I know because I planted 4 seeds each of the F2 & F3's. After counting plants there were only 3 F2's and this one has to be the 4th.

This message was edited May 10, 2011 11:06 AM

X - Was the parent plant shredded bloom a bloom that occurred when the plant was a mature plant? I get some really unusual blooms on my vines as the vines age. Especially right before or during their last hurrah before dying. I have found that the shredded blooms are usually sterile. BUT ... you are right about the shredded gene being in the seeds! They can show up at any time from any future vine generations! I look forward to seeing more blooms from those vines! Congrats on getting some unusual flowers!

The original shredded bloom was from a mature plant and the one that had gotten sprayed with Messenger. The comparison picture was the 2nd shredded bloom and subsequent blooms of which the newly forming buds had been sprayed with the Messenger showed other strange characteristics as well.

I have been growing out the Dbl Blue Picotee for years and though there were odd blooms, nothing ever even came close to looking like the original and 2nd shredded blooms that had been sprayed with Messenger. Not only was the form different but there were color shifts as well. After a month or so, the plant started producing the "normal" blue picotees on the new growth that hadn't been sprayed with Messenger.

I am firmly convinced that the Messenger altered genes since every bud that was present when sprayed ended up with grossly altered flowers not only in form but in color as well. I know that this strain of Dbl Blue Picotee throws mutants, but never EVER on this order .. especially with the color shifts.

Here is a picture the closest thing to the deformed ones but you can see it is clearly different. This one was from seeds from a different plant that never did come in contact with the Messenger.

X - How interesting that you believe that Messenger has somehow altered the genetics of the flowers on your vines. I've only used Messenger once and didn't see much difference at all, so never thought to use it again. That is very worthy of your experiment alone. Did you get seeds from the mutant blooms at all? Or were those sterile? What exactly is in Messenger, do you know?

I remember Messenger was a big deal a few years ago. But I rarely hear about it now.

The vines that I grew out that started forming the mutant blooms were at the end of the life cycle of one of my vines. (Maybe more ... I don't remember.) I started getting unusual shredded looking blooms, too. I was only using MiracleGro Bloom Booster and well water. Bottom watering them. Almost all the last few blooms on mine were small and mutant. Interesting, indeed!

The links in the very first post of this thread takes you through the saga.

I couldn't find the end of the lifecycle bloom photos of my DFNM vine from 2009. But here is a collage showing some of the blooms as the vine aged. The shredded small blooms showed up towards the end of November 2009 before the vine died.

I forgot to say that I still believe these odd blooms may have been caused by the fertilizer. I know people think I am nuts, but I really fertilize my vines to get blooms so that I can hope to get seeds. Tons of blooms and lots of mutants! So if you think your vine blooms were altered by Messenger, then isn't it possible that over-fertilizing could have an affect on them, too?

BTW - Seems the Messenger website no longer exists at the links you has posted in the older threads about this topic. Did they go out of business? This link here says that Messenger has been "discontinued". http://www.gardeningthings.com/organic-natural-fertilizers-biostimulants-c-67/messenger-reg-plant-health-activator-3-pack-12oz-packets-p-196


This message was edited May 8, 2011 3:54 PM

Those are some interesting mutants. As I understand it, Messenger worked on a cellular level with hints in some of the papers I read, on a genetic level and wasn't really a food. I know when I first posted the Messenger Saga threads I was actually contacted by one of their biochemists asking permission to use some of my pictures .. I said yes and never heard anything back from him.

I do not think that over feeding can cause mutant blooms. As you pointed out, it's more likely as the plant aged, errors began to creep into the genome causing the deformations of your flowers. My plant could not have been more than a couple of months old since the original thread was posted in May.

I still have some unopened packets of Messenger sitting around somewhere .. I'm wondering if they are still good or if the material has a short shelf life.

Now that is an interesting subject! Do fertilizers cause mutant blooms? Personalty I don't think so but they may increase the overall number of blooms therefore giving rise to opportunity?

I think I read somewhere that a company bought out the U.S. company that made messenger, but, don't remember where I read that, maybe on the co-op forum.

Becky's link explains it all. The bottom line is that Messenger and new product Employ are probably GM plant based products. The fact that Messenger was discontinued makes me go "hmmmmm".

I wonder what happened, I'll tell you what has happened here on our orchards. Four years ago we got 10 pecan trees, very young grafted trees, our neighbor also got about 30 pecan trees the same day, they even helped us put ours in.

I used messenger on ours, they did not, ours are three times the size as theres are today. I am not sure if it was the messenger spraying we did, or the fact that we have a drip system to each tree since we don't have water rights to the irrigation ditch.

I too wonder why it was discontinued, I still have some packets around too. I may try it on some annuals just to see what happens.