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Jul 29, 2014 11:43 AM CST
Thread OP
Name: Olivier
Buizingen, Belgium
Hi all

I have read the totality of this interesting thread and the Toby's article. Unfortunately,, I don't understand videos because my english is too bad.
I have a lot of questions. I 'm a belgian breeder with essentially botanical species and some cultivars.

Is there a "general" rule to the inheritance of Sempervivum? What are recessive or dominant genes, for example, the colors of flowers or foliage?
What contribution mother and father do they bring in the crossing? For example, in the hybridization of roses, the mother brings the foliage and plant habit, the father the shape of flowers, etc ... Is that similar rules are known in the Sempervivum genus?

I have difficult to obtain mature pollen of Jovibarba. I place the flowers inside behind a window but the pollen does not become mature. How shall we do it?

In the Toby's article, I read:
Diploid arachnoideum (AA) X Diploid tectorum (TT) —> sterile or near sterile tufted hybrid (AT)
Tetraploid arachnoideum (AAAA) X Tetraploid tectorum (TTTT) —> fertile tufted hybrid (AATT)


What result can you have with:
Diploid x tetraploid ?
Triploid x tetraploid or diploid ?
My S x pomelii that I collected in Massif Central give not seedlings (S. x pomelii is triploid because arachnoideum tomentosum is diploid in this area and arvernense is teraploid). Is that I can use for hybridizations ?

Last question:
What method do you use for labels?
How to distinguish several different crosses on a single stem of flowers?

Sorry for my bad english and thanks for your patience ;)

Olivier
www.sempervivum.legtux.org
www.chromaphyosemion.be
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Jul 29, 2014 12:16 PM CST
Moderator
Name: Lynn
Oregon City, OR (Zone 8b)
Charter ATP Member Garden Sages I helped plan and beta test the plant database. I helped beta test the Garden Planting Calendar I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! Plant Database Moderator
Forum moderator I helped beta test the first seed swap Million Pollinator Garden Challenge Celebrating Gardening: 2015 Plant and/or Seed Trader Garden Ideas: Master Level
Hi Olivier. Great questions. This is such a wonderful topic, so I split it into it's own thread.
Now let us see if we can get @JungleShadows (Kevin Vaughn) to answer these questions.

And your English is just fine. Smiling

I look forward to reading the information Kevin gives us. Thank you for asking the questions.
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Jul 29, 2014 7:17 PM CST
Name: Kevin Vaughn
Salem OR (Zone 8a)
Chromaphyto,

If you would like please email me privately at [email protected] and I'll try to answer your questions. The tape was of me talking and I tend to go fast because I have such great students at the clinic.

I am on vacation this week so I might not get back to you right away.

Kevin
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Jul 31, 2014 11:18 AM CST
Thread OP
Name: Olivier
Buizingen, Belgium
Thanks for your help Lynn and Kevin Smiling
www.sempervivum.legtux.org
www.chromaphyosemion.be
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Jul 31, 2014 2:08 PM CST
Moderator
Name: Lynn
Oregon City, OR (Zone 8b)
Charter ATP Member Garden Sages I helped plan and beta test the plant database. I helped beta test the Garden Planting Calendar I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! Plant Database Moderator
Forum moderator I helped beta test the first seed swap Million Pollinator Garden Challenge Celebrating Gardening: 2015 Plant and/or Seed Trader Garden Ideas: Master Level
You are welcome Olivier. Thumbs up
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Aug 22, 2015 2:37 PM CST
Name: Michael
Darmstadt, Hessen, Germany
Sempervivums Hybridizer Container Gardener Cactus and Succulents Region: Europe Garden Ideas: Level 1
Hello,

I just entered the forum and found this the best thread to place my questions.
Having watched Kevin's clinic videos on youtube early this summer, I decided to give organized sempervivum hybridisation a try.
Armed with a pair of pointy tweezers I did bee's work from May to late July and criss-crossed Sempervivum to Sempervivum and Jovibarba (all non-heuffelii types). As bees rarely visit our balcony on the fourth floor, nobody interfered with my organized work.
Most of my types are NOIDs as you call them here, that is why I gave a number to each type and cross to allow for traceability lateron.

In nearly all Jovibarba flowers I found compact, dense pollen, that was nearly impossible to transfer to other flowers. In my Sempervivum flowers the pollen was light and fluffy and easy to spread from one anther to several stigma of the receiving plant. Also development of the stigma took much longer in Jovibarba than in Sempervivum (here the characteristic white 'plate' on top of the style was shown on the second day as described by Kevin in his videos). Is this normally the case or are my Jovibarba simply non-fertile hybrids?
As pollen transfer in Jovibarba provided difficulties I mostly used Jovibarba as receiving plants to do my Sempervivum x Jovibarba crosses.
I found a lot of contradicting information on the net about this topic:
Provided both parents are fertile themselves is there any chance these crosses will produce viable seeds (and offspring?)? Confused

Today I harvested most of my seed heads and put them in seperate paper bags, I only left those outside that are not yet completely dry. I already saw a large number of seeds (hopefully mature and viable). I'm looking forward to next spring - or maybe I will give winter sowing a try, although these milk jugs are not common in Germany - would transparent plastic bottles also do the job or is the material too thin to keep of cold temperatures?

Have a nice evening,

Michael
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Aug 23, 2015 9:58 AM CST
Moderator
Name: Lynn
Oregon City, OR (Zone 8b)
Charter ATP Member Garden Sages I helped plan and beta test the plant database. I helped beta test the Garden Planting Calendar I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! Plant Database Moderator
Forum moderator I helped beta test the first seed swap Million Pollinator Garden Challenge Celebrating Gardening: 2015 Plant and/or Seed Trader Garden Ideas: Master Level
Hi Michael, so nice to meet you. And how exciting to hear of the work you are doing in hybridizing. We would love to see photos if you have them?
I find the opaque milk jugs work the best, both in size and shape. But it would be worth a try to use other containers that are easy to find. Let us know how they work for you when you start planting seeds.

Let us give a call out to Kevin @JungleShadows to address your other questions. He is the expert here at ATP on this process with our much loved sempervivum.
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Aug 23, 2015 10:30 AM CST
Name: Kevin Vaughn
Salem OR (Zone 8a)
Michael,

Like you I find the Semps easier to cross than the Jovibarba type flowers. With them I have resorted mainly to self pollinating them as I find it so annoying to rip the blossoms apart to emasculate the flowers. The pollen of the Jovibarba types is a bit more clumpy but it does seem to pollinate just fine. I had seeds on Emerald Spring last season that I used in crosses and the seedlings definitely have the characteristics of the pollen parent.

OK on the fertility issue. If you cross two diploid plants from different species the hybrids might be fertile, depending how distantly the species are related. Surprisingly, many of these crosses show rather high fertility, even with parents of two different chromosome counts. This may be because we are really dealing with ancient allopolypoloids in our diploid species, so that there is some chromosome pairing in the hybrids. Crosses of diploids with tetraploids results in mostly sterile triploids. You do get a few seeds from these plants, but not many. Crosses between two tetraploids will give you the greatest chance for fertile hybrids between different species as all the chromosomes will have a partner with which to pair during meiosis.

The sterile plants tend to have odd, off color pollen. My Greenwich Time has a very light, almost lemon yellow pollen, much different than the more golden yellow pollen typical of the fertile semps. Other plants, like Aymon Correvon I find nearly sterile but I have been collecting open pollinated seed on these, hoping that the bees might find a compatible parent. So far only ONE seedling!

Hope that helps!

Kevin
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Aug 23, 2015 11:24 AM CST
Name: Michael
Darmstadt, Hessen, Germany
Sempervivums Hybridizer Container Gardener Cactus and Succulents Region: Europe Garden Ideas: Level 1
Hello Kevin,

thank you for your fast reply. I had to look up Emerald spring in google as I am currently not so familiar with the plant names. If I understand correctly you successfully managed to cross different jovibarba types, did you ever (successfully?) cross sempervivum and jovibarba?

Would the number of chromosome sets be somehow visible in my plants? - for most of them I don't have the name, but only numbers I assigned to them...

Hello Lynn,

I will try to take some fotos later this week. It just started to rain and afterwards it will be to dark for good fotos...

Regards,

Michael
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Aug 23, 2015 1:35 PM CST
Name: Kevin Vaughn
Salem OR (Zone 8a)
Michael,

Unfortunately the ploidies are not obvious although a rule of thumb is that the tetraploids ARE BIGGER than the diploids. However, the tetraploid arachnoideums are really no bigger than the diploid ones. The pollen will be about 1.4X bigger under the microscope, if you have one available to you.

I've only crossed within the eu-Sempervivum and Jovibarba, not between. Mark Smith and others have been successful. I tend to think PAST the F1 so I want fertile plants to continue the line.

Kevin
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Aug 23, 2015 2:10 PM CST
Name: Michael
Darmstadt, Hessen, Germany
Sempervivums Hybridizer Container Gardener Cactus and Succulents Region: Europe Garden Ideas: Level 1
Hi Kevin,

so the number of chromosome sets will remain unknown in my non-named variaties as I neither have a mikroscope nor a real comparison for plant and pollen size...bigger is so relative...
As a starter my aim is F1 - if the crosses should work I will give F2 a try. I'm not planning to sell anything - I'm just curious what happens...A dark red to black xjovibarba hirta would look awesome don't you think?... Hilarious!

Have a nice afternoon!

Regards,

Michael
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Aug 23, 2015 2:12 PM CST
Name: Michael
Darmstadt, Hessen, Germany
Sempervivums Hybridizer Container Gardener Cactus and Succulents Region: Europe Garden Ideas: Level 1
Kevin,

I just forgot to ask you: What does eu-Sempervivum mean? Confused
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Aug 24, 2015 12:41 AM CST
Name: Greg Colucci
Seattle WA (Zone 8b)
Sempervivums Sedums Plant Lover: Loves 'em all! Cactus and Succulents Container Gardener Garden Ideas: Level 1
Garden Art Birds Dog Lover Cat Lover Region: Pacific Northwest Hummingbirder
Welcome Michael! Glad you found your way to All things Plants! I love the hirta and arenaria - so yes black or nearly black, or even purple ones sound super!! Hurray!
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Aug 24, 2015 12:45 PM CST
Moderator
Name: Lynn
Oregon City, OR (Zone 8b)
Charter ATP Member Garden Sages I helped plan and beta test the plant database. I helped beta test the Garden Planting Calendar I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! Plant Database Moderator
Forum moderator I helped beta test the first seed swap Million Pollinator Garden Challenge Celebrating Gardening: 2015 Plant and/or Seed Trader Garden Ideas: Master Level
It sure would. I think we would all love to add those to our collections. Thumbs up
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Aug 25, 2015 9:48 AM CST
Name: Kevin Vaughn
Salem OR (Zone 8a)
Michael,

eu-Sempervivum just means NOT in the Jovibarba genus or subfamily, depending how you decide to accept the taxonomy.

I agree that a blood red hirta type would be very cool.

Last year I self pollinated Jowan as the pollen looked good and got mostly chaff in the seed capsules but ONE seedling appeared. It looks more like a heuffelii type although it has not increased yet.

My Emerald Spring X allioni Yellow Form seedlings are starting to show some differences. The most interesting is one with tiny, many leaved rosettes but in more the stellate form of hirtum. There is a complete continuum between one parent and the other.

Best of luck in your quest!

Kevin
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Aug 26, 2015 12:32 PM CST
Name: Michael
Darmstadt, Hessen, Germany
Sempervivums Hybridizer Container Gardener Cactus and Succulents Region: Europe Garden Ideas: Level 1
Hello,
I finally managed to take/organize some fotos of my collection- as it would not fit in here I decided to place them in a separate thread called "My small collection".

Regards,

Michael
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