The first cold snap for the Kiwi winter is covering the country but a few nice flowers are slowly opening . John Hunter has bred an excellent line of very early white trumpets . Both Graham Phillips and I see a good market future for the 4 selections that John made from the cross .They are far to early for the show season but are strong growing , big flowers that open clean white and I would think are what the market wants ; always a small demand for white flowers for weddings , churches etc . The cross is PENGUIN – x – ( GLENDERMOTT – x – KOTUKU ) — X — CANISP .
The first to flower , big and on a strong stem is JAH 3 / 93 A . 
The smoothest and of very top quality show form is 3 / 93 D , Graham chilled a bulb and had an early , late June flower to cross with his own early whites .
GRAHAM PHILLIPS GP , – J – 2
G P , J – 2 is a good sized flower on a slightly shorter stem , good form but opens a little creamy , soon going all white .
JFM – 07 – 42
My first whitish double , just picked today is 07 – 42 ; last season I had a few with pistils and was very pleased to collect seed with pollen from the Hunter line Canisp seedlings .
SHORTY , — helping ? ?
My helper , Shorty , was out in the sun today — and keeping of the daffs , for a change .
Thanks for the photos John. I’m amazed and intrigued. I vaguely recall Marie Parton having daffodils in early July in the Kalumunda hills near Perth, Western Australia, but yours seem extraordinary to me, particularly the double. My earliest div.1-4 flowers come in early-mid August. Here it would take some extraordinary breeding event for them to jump across mid-winter. So I was wondering if you have an opinion – do you think you can breed them earlier and earlier into the autumn? I notice your comment about using viridiflorus hybrids to produce early doubles. I have an awful fertile Quick Step type hybrid that is a double but I’ve not managed to breed anything from it – it flowers very late and badly and doesn’t produce much pollen. It holds the prospect of a fertile line of doubles but it will be a challenge to get respectable flowers and to get them to hold a doubled flower properly.
One last thing, the picture of Loch Loyal x viridiflorus looks a bit like my Viriquilla (Limequilla x Emerald Sea). Is it possible the pedigree has been mixed up – I don’t understand how such a cross could produce a white perianth and so long a cup (compare it, for example, with Lima’s Jetfire and El Camino x viridiflorus)?