Jo Ann,
I can see your point about not letting things get out of control. Thats a big part of why I made this thread, I'm trying to determine the earliest circumstances to appropriately cull so I can make room for observation and the next crop of young seedlings. Hand crossing the way I do tends to keep the numbers down, with only a handful of bee pollenated bloomstalks I've filled four large beds with seedlings, but my first years worth of hand crosses only filled a single bed and I used a ton of blooms with that method.
I have a few bumped seedlings after just 15 months, considering breeding them together to see if I can accentuate them. Two have already made my not-for-market saved group of breeders, and I'm thinking of plucking a third for the same purpose. None of them have bumps on all the leaves just some, lots of room for improvement.
My first crop of 'Rita Janes' is just coming around, hoping to row them out in the next few months, I'd do it now but it seems like some seeds choose to take their sweet time to germinate and I'd hate to loose any handcross seedlings before seeing what they can do.
Long stolons are a hassle in the seedling beds to, they send offsets clear into other plant's allotted territory. In a yard or cascading through a landscape they don't look too bad though. I am selecting against them, but it's not an instant disqualification.
