Celosia seedlings not true

11 years ago

Celosia reseeded and some look different. Last summer we bought a 6 pack of Celosia and they all grew and blossomed. This spring babies came up, but wow! What a difference! Some are compact with a bluish red blossom, which is what we planted. Others are much bigger with smaller orangy red blossoms. I guess seedlings don't grow true.

Featured Answer

zen_man

11 years ago

last modified: 11 years ago

Hi Suzi,

" These are covered with bees, and I know they are cross pollinating. "

True, bees do some accidental cross pollinating, but they do more accidental selfing than cross pollinating. Bees don't deliberately pollinate or cross pollinate celosia.

" Is there anyway I can isolate some of my favorites, or will they never
come true. Some are just gorgeous, and nowhere to be found in seed
catalogs. "

So you are in effect now breeding your own celosias. I breed zinnias as a hobby, and I see a lot of bees on my zinnias. I do a much more thorough and better job of pollinating my zinnias than the bees do, so I don't consider them much of a threat. If they do a cross pollination every now and then, I might even like the result. If I don't like a zinnia, I simply pull it up or snip it off. I do quite a bit of culling.

Your celosias probably come up rather thick, so that you need to thin them, and if you wait until the first bloom, you can then remove the ones you don't like and keep your favorites. In the rare case when I want to isolate a zinnia bloom from the bees, I enclose it in a "hairnet".

You can use a safety pin to close the net tighter at the bottom if you feel the need. That is seldom necessary, because a bee won't try for long to get at a particular zinnia bloom. They give up quickly and fly on to another bloom.

If you had a little greenhouse you could grow your favorite celosias in that, away from the bees. You might be able to keep the bees away with some lightweight nylon screening material. I frequently enclose my breeders with a wire "zinnis cage" and it is easy to throw some screening over one of those.

Notice the use of safety pins to secure the screening.

Incidentally, you might find some commercially available celosia seeds that are similar to your favorites. Hazzard's Seeds has a fairly diverse offering of celosia seeds .

Celosia have a good range of colors and flower forms, so, like zinnias, breeding them can be an interesting hobby.

ZM (not associated with any product or vendor mentioned or linked)

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Comments (8)

ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
11 years ago
if you start with a named culitvar ... what i call a foo foo version ... most often then not.. the genetics degenerate ... and they come out with great variation ...

a short way of saying that is.. they dont come true from seed ...

if you want stuff that comes true.. usually you need to get back to growing species plants ...

just telling us.. celosia... doesnt really give us enough info ... to figure out the above... and i suspect the tag is long gone ...

ken
dowlinggram
11 years ago
A hybrid plant will seldom come true from seed. You can get parts of every ancestor that was cross bred to get the plant you started with or you can get parts of the plant that fertilized the seed.

To show you how genetics works. I did an experiment with hybrid Gillardia this year. I took seeds from a few low growing Arizona red shades Gillardia and I also have Goblin Gillardia in that same bed. Out of the 40 plants I grew from the seed and planted not 1 was the identical of the plants I took the seed from. About 3/4 had the compact size of the Arizona and the rest were taller like the goblin. Some were pure red like the Arizona but not the exact red. some were an orangy red like the Goblin. A few had smaller flowers and some were larger and some had gold tips like the Goblin. I did end up with some interesting plants though.

There are not as many variations of color with Gillardia as there are with Coleus. Coleus comes in a multitude of colors and you could get any of those variations from dropped seed
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zen_man
11 years ago
Hi Dowlinggram,

Not that it matters, but Suzi was growing Celosia, and not Coleus.

You make a good point about recombinations of genes occurring in the F2 generation of an F1 hybrid. Incidentally, Gaillardias have a strain called Razzle Dazzle (click on the link) that has an interesting flower form and a range of colors. In my zinnia breeding experiments I have developed a zinnia strain with a very similar flower form, so I refer to those zinnias as Razzle Dazzles.

I am working to widen the color range of my Razzle Dazzles and to increase their size as well. I will be using the very technique of F2 recombinance that you described.

ZM
Suzi AKA DesertDance So CA Zone 9b
Original Author
11 years ago
This morning I took some photos of what I ended up with. The plants are so different. Then I looked at seed catalogs. I've got some that look different than they have. Can't wait till next year to see what pops up!
Suzi AKA DesertDance So CA Zone 9b
Original Author
11 years ago
These are covered with bees, and I know they are cross pollinating. Is there anyway I can isolate some of my favorites, or will they never come true. Some are just gorgeous, and nowhere to be found in seed catalogs.
Suzi AKA DesertDance So CA Zone 9b
Original Author
11 years ago
Thanks for the isolation techniques and for the link. Looks like a good place to get seeds, but none of theirs look like what I have growing. Bombay maybe, but mine is a deeper bluish red and much more frilly. That is one I will isolate for sure. I love these flowers! I go out and check on them at least 3 times daily!
zen_man
11 years ago
Hi Suzi,

" ...Bombay maybe, but mine is a deeper bluish red and much more frilly. "

You might be able to cross yours with the Bombay to get your improved flower form in the extended Bombay color range.

ZM
Suzi AKA DesertDance So CA Zone 9b thanked zen_man