A couple of years ago I rescued a couple of John Reed seedlings from his discard pile. Perhaps not great exhibition flowers but they had some characteristics that I could possibly use in hybridizing. A lot of pink in the petals of one, I crossed it with one of my pink petaled seedlings. I love the beautiful red corona of the other one, surely I can find a use for that in hybridizing. Wish I knew his hybridizing number, would make a nice vase of three. Should make a showy spring time clump in the yard also!
Congrats Larry! Love them,
Ted and Bea have moved to Collierville, near Memphis, to be near his daughter.
Sent from my iPhone
Thanks so much Ralph for the information about Ted and his wife. I have been trying to reach him. Others have been asking about Ted also.
Take care Ralph.
Hi Larry,
the W-R seedling looks gorgeous with it`s shortish redpink cup against a snowwhite perianth! You must be lucky to have rescued it.
At first sight this one reminds me of Brian Duncan`s “Inner Glow”, very similar in colour and style, only with a shorter cup. Some years ago John Reed encouraged me to use “Inner Glow” for breeding Div. 3-Pinks and -Reds of deeper colour.
I would not hesitate to use this litle gem for breeding.
Petra
Petra,
Thanks for your comments. Yes, a lot of luck was involved in this rescue. It is also very possible this seedling has Inner Glow in it’s background. I know Dr. Reed used Inner Glow in a number of his white red crosses. I have another very nice 2w-r numbered seedling that has Inner Glow as one parent. This could be from the same cross. These seedlings had been piled up on the side of the field the summer before. The next spring, with little dirt still on the roots, I happened to see only one very small bloom with poor form, but the bright red color caught my eye. That was in 2017, last year in 2020 it finally bloomed again, the form had improved and the bright red corona was still there to catch my eye. I am calling it Orphan Annie as the parents are unknown. The pink petaled seedling came from the same pile of discarded plants. Only one bloom was seen in the clump.
Pinik petals–worthy of use for hybridizing–would like to hear about other daffodils with pink petals. Sounds very interesting.
Larry,
what a charming story about the details how Orphan Annie was rescued – luck for you and for Orphan Annie as well! Thank you for telling us.
Such truly special circumstances make a flower even more distinct and unique.
Best of luck for your hybridising!
Petra
Lewis,
Pink petaled daffodils are very rare. Hybridizers have been trying to develop these for many years. Developments have come slow as there was little breeding stock to start with. Slowly some pink begin to show up in the petals and improvements begin to show up. More should be available in the future hopefully. The late Dr. John Reed at Oakwood Daffodils has developed several and I think Brian Duncan has some also. Other breeders are working on this also. Perhaps other growers on Daffnet can add more information.
Pink petals have come from Culmination X Music and Fragrant Rose X Culmination from John Reed.
I have been breeding with music since first seeing it flush pink in the late 1990’s Sandycove and its progeny also provide a pink cast but many of the progeny have a vanilla coloration to the petals.
Pinkie lee and Pink Panda have the clearest pink petals of the releases from John Reed. The seedling 90-95 series provides flushed perianths so At last and Benton Harbor would be good to get when found. I have not seen the depth of pink perianth color from other breeders. Clive Postles, Graham Phillips and The Millers have peachy self-colored flowers that could be interesting breeding parents
This discussion reminds me of the hybridizer’s robin of years back. I looked through my past breeding and had a seedling bloom where I used Music as a Pollen parent. I did not observe any pink in the perianth in a resultant seedling that bloomed.
Here is a question–just thinking, and it would take some breeding to check this out–an it may take possibly several generations. Are orange perianth daffodils a result of pink and yellow? If so, some of them could be used to eventually develop pink perianth daffodils. If I were still actively hybridizing today–I would breed a daffodil that definitely has an orange perianth with one that has white petals. I would of course choose parents that had good form, or good form in their offspring. Also, I would grow as many as I could from a cross increasing my chances of finding if there might be pink in the colors that make up orange in orange perianth daffodils. It would be interesting to hear the thoughts of others about this thread of thought. There is a lot still to be explored. For me some a number of my seedlings took around 9 years to bloom after I planted the seed. It takes a lot of time to study what makes up different colors in daffodils, and to work to make the color stronger and more consistent.
I am glad to see this pink coloration now being looked at in hybridizing.
Lewis and Michael,
All of the daffodils mentioned have Culmination and or Cool Flame in their background. Those are white petaled but with strong pink to almost red in their corona. It seems the strong pink to red corona is where the pink in the petals is coming from. I have some seedlings with pink in their petals and those have strong pink to red in the coronas also. Am crossing those, with some of Dr. Reed’s also hoping to intensify the pink. Believe orange perianth daffodils came from daffodils with strong orange coronas. Don’t believe orange perianth daffodils would give you pink perianths, but I surely could be wrong. I guess the only way to know for sure is to make the crosses . Really, all the color we have in daffodils now, originally came from the red in poets.
Lewis,
We may only have a couple of years to wait for the first generation. I have mentioned before and will refer to it on Zoom next month I have 70 two year old seedlings of (Air Castle x Emerald Pink) 3Y-W x (Sabine Hay x Altruist) 3O-O. Maybe I was years ahead of this discussion. I don’t expect to be around for the next couple of important generations though. Watch out for the ADS Auction in 2024.
David, that sounds like an interesting cross to watch.
Thanks David for joining in on this discussion, I will be interested in what shows up in your mentioned cross. Please let us know how this turns out.
There are several avenues to work with here. Altruist was a favorite of Dr Tom Throckmorton for breeding as it produced color changing flowers. Adding these to the mix of toned perianth flowers has also been an interest of mine for some time. Using these parents one can get OO PP or amber flowers that generate the coloration with time or fade. I have several seedlings that stary as 2W-Y and become reverse bicolors, pink rimmed Yellow orange or yellow pinks. Options abound here.
Michael,
Thanks for your input on this discussion. I was not aware of Altruist breeding traits. I don’t grow it, thus don’t know much about it. Perhaps you, David, and Lewis are on to something using orange petaled flowers to create unusual colors. I am breeding with some 20-0 cultivars but only trying to intensify the orange in the perianth.
Larry,
I really like your W-R cultivar and the origin story too.
One of our Daffnet readers pointed out a bug on the mailing list messages generated from this web forum. She indicated that comments are duplicated in all the comment messages.
I made a change to the mailing program which I hope solves that. So this is a test.
Ben
Ben, I too – have experienced this for a few months. The Daffnet message I received below was not ‘doubled’ for the first time in a long time. Your fix and test are successful on my end. Thanks for resolving this issue and for all you do for ADS and the wider daffodil world.
Cordially,
Jaydee Atkins Ager
Ben,
No duplication today. You dun good.
Thanks Ben. You corrected the duplicate messages- I thought it was
something on my end.
Thanks for making that correction. Glad it was able to be made.
Interesting Thread. I am currently hybridizing to make an intense O-O and using Rocking Goose since I have a good stock of this variety. I cross with all other Orange daffodils I have and vice a versa. Seedlings should be blooming in the next couple of years. I 1st got Rocking Goose 2017. The idea of crossing with a good white perianth with O-O sounds like something I will try. I’m willing to try anything. I too like pink perianth. I’ve used Reeds Pinkie Lee and Pink Panda when ever it makes sense. 1st pink perianth babies in a few years. Spring is an exiting time in the baby beds. I’ll post baby pics on Facebook Carter’s Daffodils as well as Daffnet if I can find the time.
Bill,
I used to breed for orange perianth’s. I may be introducing one after I examine my blooms this year a cross that I have watched for some time. Last year, several of the blooms were very nice.
I look forward to seeing pictures of yours.
Petra, could you please email me privately? I sent you a photo via email and wonder if you received it.
Mary Lou