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.
