Over the years, I have heard different numbers thrown out as to how many of a seed lot you should start. Some have said growing out ten or so will be a good representation of a cross. I tend to start more than that. Just wondered what experiences you guys have had with numbers of seed started and if you think you have gotten good representation of that cross's potential. And if you have a number you start, how you came to the number or if it has changed for you overtime. Thoughts on the subject are very much appreciated.

Tracey,

My opinion - you will get some idea of what a cross has by growing 10 but to see the full breadth of a cross I believe you need to be shooting for more like 100. The other question is if you are shooting for 100 blooming - how many seeds do you need to start with? I suffer from the ability to kill a high percentage of seedlings.

I do think the number seedlings would depend on the type of cross. If you are crossing two species - say L. regale & L. sargentiae then there would likely be a lot less variability in the first generation. But if you cross F1 seedlings to get the F2, you would likely see more variability and want to raise a larger number of seedlings.

So what I would suggest as a rule of thumb - the more different the genetics of the parents the fewer you would need to raise but the more similar the genetics of the parents the more you would want to raise to see the full range of the cross. Especially if you are working at the tetraploid level you need more as it takes a lot more seedlings to see the recessive traits expressed at the tetraploid level.

Regards,
Patrick

Patrick's advice is very logical and I can attest to his prediction with F₁ species crosses. There is (relatively) little variation.

To your question, Tracey, I don't have an answer or a guess. But I have heard many times from breeders that their best finds in a lot is often "that one odd sibling" (of which there was none other like it). On the other hand, there is the seed that Della is raising from Paul's breeding, where all(?) siblings seem to be showing traits toward what the breeder intended.

Oh boy, I think the answers to this one can be all over the place, depending on how it applies.

In cases where I get a full pod of good looking seed, I'm one of those who happens to believe I don't need many to tell me all I want to know of what I'm looking for. In that case 25 seeds is all I need. If it is not favorable, the whole retained seed lot gets scrapped. If something is favorable, I'll follow up with 5 pots of 25 each from the retain. Statistically, after 2 years the 5 samples of 20 to 25 seeded pots will give me a better breakdown of overall attrition, plant structure and range of flower color and flower style.

In case of established known fertility issues, without a known mentor pollen, I will use mixed pollen in hopes one pollen will act as one allowing my intended cross to succeed, at least to some extent. In those cases where I get seed, I will plant 5 pots at 25 seeds each, if in fact, I even get that many. And take it from there.

In cases where one has open pollenated seed from a garden of high quality base breeding stock, I would plant as many as I have time and room for. But, I've never had the time and room to monkey with mine. This year I promised myself to do some. But for those who were involved with the Dr. Griesbach digging project, if anyone has open pollenated seed from there; that should be a high priority.

There have been cases where I felt maybe 1 pot of 25 discussed in paragraph one is too brief. That is, I've lost some lots totally through attrition after 2 years. But I've learned to trust in myself for the sake of consistency, for its the only way for me to make a good comparison to the overall, considering all the batches and years of work. Be consistent in your own rules, whatever they may be.

I tend to lose seedlings, a few, over time, during different stages of transfer. Kind of figure survival of the fittest, right? Or whatever survives my ways and my climate.

I have been known to throw an entire seed pod contents into a baggie. I'm not proud of it. I just get excited about the prospects, or if in some of the more complex crosses, germination isn't as good, I will still have plenty to grow out.

Your explanations, each of them, make a great deal of sense. I will likely continue to start more seeds rather than less since I have some losses routinely.

I thank you for your input.

I can't really speak on liliums yet but with various other plants there's a lot of factors that would still apply like

diploid vs tetraploid
with diploid you have 4 outcome possibilities per gene pair, with tetraploid you have 16...so just by virtue tetraploid lends itself to requiring more to get a full range of outcomes (it's just a pity that tetraploid often produce less seed)

species vs hybrid
species x species the first gen will be fairly uniform so I'm less inclined to go big numbers with those and will be happy with 10 surviving and then weed those down to the best 3 (from often very minute differences) to make the f2 with...which I will go all out on as that is where really exceptional trait combinations can occur (ie super old paper by the first article
http://mertzdigital.nybg.org/c...
demonstrates, kinda they do use a backcross, that despite the fairly large numbers produced very few of the gladious displayed both day and night scent from the two parent species...if you only did a limited sample there's a good chance you'd probably not encounter it and believe it wasn't possible)

recently tetraploid
if recently tetraploid chances are there's going to be a fair bit of genetic similarity so I don't really feel inclined to do more than 30 - 50...there's differences but also a lot of samey stuff. If you can't tell when in the parentage things were converted to tetraploid though, good chance there aren't a bunch of identical chromsomes (and thus genes) so can see some very unexpected outcomes.

highly mixed parentage qualities vs consistent parentage qualities
plays largely into the previous but as an example the rose Friesia, parents are Friedrich Wörlein and Spanish Sun going back through 4 generations of the parentage everything has a strong or moderate fragrance and everything is either yellow or a light pink, I would expect any cross to produce offspring that is generally fairly similar to each other.

fertility
Some things just have low fertility or germination...like roses where I can easily plant 100 seeds from a cross and be very lucky to get 20 to germinate (or which most or all will have some giant health issue....roses are often luck based flukes as healthy plant + healthy plant = offspring that have extreme mildew issues or rust or blackspot...)


so any combination of those will influence decisions based on the specific cross.

This discussion has been very helpful. I appreciate all your thoughts on the subject.

Usually one pot with 9-12 seeds from a cross, sometimes a second pot. I am mostly doing crosses to see what is possible for color patterns and form. Trying to make things that are not available on the market. I am not selling lilies or trying to compete with the Dutch. Just making "eye candy" for the internet.

I have some lots of seed that almost every seed gave something worthwhile. Freeze the extra seeds that you don't initially plant and you can always plant more later if the early ones work out.

Attached pix are from one cross 12-183. As you can see there is a lot of variation. Some have useful traits for further work. I have repeated this cross, and planted more seeds last year.

MASTER!

Hank, this one is interesting as the dickens. I've never seen any like this. I suppose quite a few in this lot may be capable of a wide distribution also. Interesting. I think Brian Bergman would love to see this picture. Would you mind if I share it with him or would you send him a copy? I can't wait to see what your repeat seedlings look like.

Hank, I can't remember, do you protect all of your crosses? Any chance of cross pollination?

Looking at that variation, it would seem that starting more seeds is better than less.

Yes, protected as there is no lily pollen left in the garden. A little crazy in that I am out in the garden before sun-up pulling ALL the anthers off ALL the lilies. This is why I am asked if all my lilies are pollenless (answer: Only after I'm done with them).
I do not get pods and seeds forming on any flowers that I have not pollenated.
Most of the time my crosses involve lilies that are very different in appearance. I rarely do line type crosses. I am not trying to duplicate lilies that are already out there being sold. (Example: what's with all the OTs that are coming out now that are all deep pink/red and look nearly identical?)

Also, yes plant as many seeds as you have the space and energy to grow. Less crosses = more seeds can be planted of a cross, but I do lots of crosses so fewer seeds of each to start.

A few from cross 09-97 (from 12 seeds planted)


So I would rather plant fewer seeds of a greater number of crosses to start.

I have heard different lily and daylily people explain line breeding. Talking about muddy colors and such. I understand concepts like that but I also wonder how doing things that way will ever get you anything different.

Eye candy? That's one way to put it. Your hybrids are so nice, the colors, the different forms. I wish I could buy them. The Dutch have nothing on you Hank. Seriously.

magnolialover said:I have heard different lily and daylily people explain line breeding. Talking about muddy colors and such. I understand concepts like that but I also wonder how doing things that way will ever get you anything different.

Eye candy? That's one way to put it. Your hybrids are so nice, the colors, the different forms. I wish I could buy them. The Dutch have nothing on you Hank. Seriously.

I agree with you magnolialover. Hank your lilies are fabulous!

magnolialover said:I have heard different lily and daylily people explain line breeding. Talking about muddy colors and such. I understand concepts like that but I also wonder how doing things that way will ever get you anything different.

In that situation it's about improvement/refinement rather than different. Linebreeding just reduces the number of possible outcomes and increases the chance of recessives being the same and able to be expressed. Some traits require multiple genes to express a trait, if those are largely recessive you're unlikely to see you them with outcrossing.

In general unless you're working towards a specific outcome it's probably not something to concern yourself with.

magnolialover said:I have heard different lily and daylily people explain line breeding. Talking about muddy colors and such. I understand concepts like that but I also wonder how doing things that way will ever get you anything different.

Tracey - I presume you are very familiar with the work of Bob Griesbach. He started with two hybrids - Black Beauty & White Henryi and used the tetraploid converted forms to create Leslie Woodriff. He got very few plants (LW siblings) from this first generation cross - even though it was done on hundreds of flowers over many years. Bob then worked to cross the F1 generation to each other which yielded more plants with some of the crosses. It has been amazing to see the diversity that came from 3 species and going deep with the hybrids from those species and the variation that can be produced.

I had a chance to talk with Bob and ask him many questions. It was very helpful in understanding the benefits of wide & deep crosses. What I took away from his recommendations were 1) to start with as broad of genetics as possible in the first generation. For his starting point, he has BB & WH which represented 3 species. He suggested starting with a much broader base than this - would have been better if more species were represented on both sides of the cross to bring in different genes for color, height, flower form, etc. 2) look for something different (or something you like) in the seedlings and chase it by crossing seedlings with the same characteristic selected from a larger population. From the second generation do that same thing and from one generation to the next you should be able to see some increase in that characteristic. Some examples of this from his trumpets were the pink/purple picotees and the ruffled edge of the tepals and from his OT what he called the "Lavenders". He noticed these characteristics in a few seedlings and through several generations was able to strengthen and extend the characteristic. This is not a simple dominant/recessive type process but really building a line of plants where you are trying to develop something new/different.

I think in the end it comes down to breeding goals. Are you trying to create breeding lines like the examples I gave with Bob or are you trying to scramble genes and hope for something different to pop out from the first or second cross? Are you looking to breed within the traditional section boundaries (Asiatic, Aurelian, Oriental, Martagon) or do you want to try to make wide crosses and develop something different all together? One is not better than another - just different. You need to do what aligns with where you want to go. There is plenty of space in lily breeding for all these approaches and each has a specific purpose.

Speaking on what can be achieved with a tiny gene pool (granted different flower entirely but still very interesting and relevant)
http://reticulatas.com/
You can click on the names to see family tree.
He uses just three species (and a starting population of 4, ?, total individuals) as only 3 species can be bred together to get fertile offspring due to chromosome number differences.

I have ideas on what I would like to see. Not really trying wide crosses yet, that involve ER and such. Maybe one day. But for now I am pretty happy working with seeds and trying my hand at conversion at this point. It would be nice to come up with a few nice crosses along the way.

I'm sure you will Tracey. Think positive