Reality is far from simple.

ZM

It's a cross of two desirable plants. Because they are crossed they won't come true to seed. I tried it with cherry tomatoes. The skin was like leather and they were bitter tasting.

Thankyou zackey.

Zenman, your post made me laugh out loud but I think you might have given more info. If it hurts to keep it simple, be as complex, complicated and compelling as you need to be.

I await.

t-a-t

Hi t-a-t,

"If it hurts to keep it simple, be as complex, complicated and compelling as you need to be. "

Happy Thanksgiving. I will try to give a more proper and informative response tomorrow. I breed zinnias as a hobby, and make a lot of cross pollinations with them, and the zinnias continually remind me that what is going on isn't simple. I think this hybrid zinnia was trying to become a Thanksgiving turkey.

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Reality is far from simple. (grin)

ZM

I eagerly await your next post, zenman.

I know nothing about zinnias, other than that they exist. And I am new to breeding: I have only ever propagated plants - not made new ones.

Does your Thanksgiving zinnia have more flowers than the normal zinnia? Or does it have a whole lot less?

Hi t-a-t,

"I know nothing about zinnias, other than that they exist."

Zinnias are a fun flower to do experimental breeding with. They are composite annuals with a wide variation in colors, flower forms, and plant habits. And they are easy to cross, because their reproductive plant parts are relatively large and easily accessible. Their seeds are relatively large and easy to handle, they germinate quickly, and grow rapidly and bloom in two months or less from the time they are planted. Each bloom lasts for a relatively long time (about a month) and the plant keeps blooming throughout its lifespan (several months).

You mentioned breeding daffodils in another message. Daffodils are interesting to breed, but you have to wait four years or more for a daffodil seed to grow into a blooming sized plant. Zinnias provide you with a much quicker reward, so that you can plant seeds that grow to bloom in six to eight weeks. Then you can cross poliinate your favorites, get viable green seeds in a few weeks, plant them and see the blooms of your crosses the same year, with time left to cross pollinate your hybrids to get seeds of hybrids of hybrids, ready to plant the following year. That would take eight to ten years with daffodils.

I am not saying that you shouldn't grow and cross daffodils, just that you should consider also growing zinnias for breeding experiments. In Australia, now would be a good time to start planting some zinnia seeds in-ground. Think about it. Zinnias can give you almost instant gratification. And making hybrids between your hybrids is great fun.

"Does your Thanksgiving zinnia have more flowers than the normal zinnia? Or does it have a whole lot less?"

It had about a dozen blooms, which is typical of some zinnias, but not nearly as floriferous as some zinnias. I have had some zinnias based on the scabiosa flowered strain of zinnias that had upwards of a hundred blooms on a very well branched and re-branched plant. Zinnias can have many different plant habits. There are short varieties that have plants only 6 inches high, and other varieties with plants 4 feet or more in height. And pretty much anything in between.

"1. How F1 hybrid seed is produced (say, for a farmer); "

Two inbred (homozygous) strains are crossed to produce an F1 hybrid, which is heterozygous, with hybrid vigor and uniform. Farmers require seeds that produce uniform plants.

"2. Why we can't produce our own seed from the plants that are grown from this seed. "

You can produce your own seed in an F2 generation, but the production of F2 seed involves producing a pollen grain that contains a random recombination of genes from the parents of the F1 hybrid and an egg cell that also contains a different random recombination of genes from the F1 parents. So the combination of those random pollen grains with those random egg cells results in many different possibilities in the F2 children. Farmers would not like that at all, because their harvesting machines depend on crop uniformity. But the home grower can benefit greatly from those many new forms that appear in the F2 generation, and select favorites and reject the variants that don't appeal to the home grower. By making crosses between the favorites, the cycle of recombining genes to produce even newer forms continues.

The degree of variation that can occur in the F2 generation is even greater when the original F1 cross was between individuals selected from different species -- interspecific crosses. The Whirligig zinnias were derived from crosses between two different zinnia species, Z. violacea and Z. haageana, so the Whirligigs are interesting to work with and cross with other zinnia varieties. Because they have so much variety, there isn't any such thing as a "typical" Whirligig, but this is an example of one.

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Whirlgigs frequently combine two or three colors in the same bloom. But they have many other interesting variations, like this one.

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If you plan to experiment with zinnias, I would recommend including Whirligigs in your mix of zinnia varieties. I don't know what you options are with respect to buying flower seeds in Australia.

ZM

This post was edited by zenman on Fri, Nov 28, 14 at 21:33

Hi t-a-t,

"What other species of plants are you interested in? "

From the standpoint of plant breeding, I am focused on zinnias. I do grow some vegetables in order to supplement what we get at the grocery store. I grow some seedless tomatoes, and you can't even find them in the store. I also like kohlrabi, and prefer it from the garden to the tough ones that the store sometimes has. I'll probably grow some lettuce this year, and try to fence it away from the rabbits. But the majority of my garden space gets used for zinnias.

"The photos of (some of) your offspring are startling in their unusualness."

A few years ago I noticed a tubular-petaled mutant in my zinnias, and was very taken by the unusualness of its flower form, so I crossed it extensively with many of my breeder zinnias to get it thoroughly into my gene pool. I got a lot of variations of the tubular petaled specimens, but all of them had petals that were essentially just tubes flaring out on the end, like a trumpet or bugle. So a couple of years later, when I found another mutant whose petals were essentially modified pollen florets ending in the usual five-pointed star, I crossed it with many of my tubular specimens in hope of getting the star-pointed look to the petal-ends and, rather surprisingly, that also worked.

Botanically, any part of a plant that is capable of producing a seed is called a flower. Since individual zinnia petals can produce a seed at their base, each zinnia petal is botanically a "flower". So one of my zinnia breeding goals is to make the individual petals look more like individual flowers. I have had some limited success in doing that.

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That second mutant, the one with modified pollen florets for petals, has evolved into the beginnings of another zinnia strain that I refer to as "Razzle Dazzle" because it resembles a Gaillardia strain by the same name.

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I also have other zinnia projects, including simply breeding them bigger.

ZM

I love the way you explain, then illustrate. The photos always come as a surprise.

They just keep on improving, your Zinnia children.

I agree that now the way to go is to make them bigger.

(I think you were a teacher in your former life.)

Hi t-a-t,

Thanks for the kind words. But I can't claim to have been a teacher, unless we are talking about reincarnation. Then, maybe. My Mother was a teacher, and a good one. Maybe a little something rubbed off on me.

If you want to read some more material related to the hobby of zinnia breeding, you can check out the It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 28 message thread in the Annuals forum.

The tubular petaled zinnias weren't just a preliminary step toward breeding the more exotic toothed petals. Their basic flower form isn't bad.

But there have been several variations of tubular zinnias, including flowers that look like they were made of soda straws.

Some have had petals that looked like odd insect larvae.

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And some have had very thin tubes, reminiscent of some undersea creature.

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Next Spring I will probably plant a whole bed of tubular petaled zinnias, just to see what variations appear.

ZM

Thankyou for your post and the wonderful pictures, ZM. My favourite flower so far is the very last one. But the ones posing as creatures from the deep and creatures from insect parentage are so intriguing too.

Hi t-a-t,

"My favourite flower so far is the very last one."

Of that group, it is also my favorite. I am working toward establishing the narrow-tubed tubular zinnias as a strain.

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They need a wide color range and larger blooms.

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It will take a lot of cross pollination between the thin tubulars and larger zinnias in a range of colors before I get the strain that I want. But it is fun working toward that goal. They are just one of my ongoing zinnia projects.

ZM