Hi Dave, I was about to ask a similar question!... I know how to and have bred orchids, irises, hippeastrum, hemerocallis, never did up to now because of space and time limitations but know how to do it with roses, peonies, etc. As to composite flowers, I'm still in the dark, that is why I only relied on selecting plants from bees' made hybrids (see post below this one "New echinaceas hybrids".

I've searched the web but haven't found good enough information. I've seen pix of the anatomy of composite flowers and much other stuff, but not much else as to how to do it more precisely. If that may help you, it did help me a wee bit but that's definetely not enough, here are several links I found:

http://www.backyardnature.net/fl_comps.htmhttp://www.aces.uiuc.edu/vista/html_pubs/PLBREED/pl_breed.html
http://www.geocities.com/sunflower_info/Biology_Sunflower.html

The next 5 are taken from other GardenWeb forums, a serie of 5 articles on zinnias (same family as cone flowers), very well done but still not enough for what I need anyway.

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/annuals/msg0922162712970.html?111
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/annuals/msg111317249809.html?59
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/annuals/msg0103283412199.html?39
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/annuals/msg021539104249.html
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/annuals/msg0702450512654.html?93

Hope this helps a bit!... but I'm really not sure it will be enough for you too.

Laurier
My web site

Ray florets are neuter in Echinacea, female in Zinnia.

Agent1, I had read those sites on composite flowers and the threads on zinnia. The thing is for zinnia, the ray flowers are female, so it is easier to isolate and pollinate them.

"Nonmember" said that ray florets are neuter in Echinacea, so we can't use the ray florets. I found a site that says that Tenessee purple coneflowers are self sterile. I don't know if that applies to all purple coneflowers.

This site says "Every species of Echinacea self pollinates to some degree, E. purpurea more so than the others (McGregor pers. commun. 1997)."
http://newcrop.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/proceedings1999/v4-482.html

It seems like we can't completely prevent self pollination, but if it is not possible to isolate hte pollen and the pistils, I guess the only thing we can do is to hope that the self pollination percentage is small, and we simply rub the pollen from one flower to another and hope for the best.

Does anyone else have other suggestion/experience?

Agent1, I thought last night I posted another link, but apparenetly I forgot to hit submit. Now I can't find the link.

But basically I found an article that described that pcf is basically self sterile. So if you have 2 different plants that you like to cross pollinate, you can use one flower from one plant and rub it on a flower of the other plant.

However, if you have a few plants of the same kind growing together, you have to bag them to prevent pollination by insect. Then you can use a flower from another kind of pfc and cross them as above.

Thanks for the info! There is an address in your previous post and I read the document. I suppose you have seen I that I started a new thread with some very specific questions. From what I read, observed and understand, the disc florets dont all open at the same time but over several days. I observed some yellow pollen near the bottom and as the flower gets older, these small yellow spots move towards the top and to me this means that each florets open in a succession. Hope I will get some answers to the questions I asked to clarify all this!...

Laurier

Laurier, actually I entered (or thought I entered 2 posts with 2 links, but one is missing).

It seems like we can tell the opening of the disk florets by the yellow pollen. They do seem to open at different time. I don't have much problem with that because if I use a brush method to bring pollens from another plant, I can do it repeatedly as more disk florets are opening.

One question that is still remaining for me, however, is I don't know when the female parts of the flowers are ready. So I don't know whether manual pollination should be carried out as soon as the disk florets are open, or should I wait.

(e.g. I have done amaryllis crossings, and the stigmas are not ready until a days after the flowers are open.)