£500 Reward or more when you find or create a new plant! | Plant Breeding

April 14, 2011 - PRLog -- Do you have a flower or vegetable growing in your garden that’s:

A different shade to the one expected?

Are the blooms larger, double or uniquely shaped or patterned?

Is the plant taller or shorter than usual or particularly compact?

Is it climbing or trailing more than usual?

Is there an unexpected fragrance?

Is it flowering out of season, or for longer than usual?

YES - you might just have something special, move straight to STEP C overleaf.

NO - go to STEPS A and B and try your hand at plant breeding to create your own new plant.

You can do it too!
Plant breeding is not merely for boffins working in sterile laboratories or elaborate glasshouse breeding stations. Breeding can be fun and very rewarding and every plant you raise has the potential to be unique. The basic skills for plant breeding are patience and good observation. You do not need much room or space. Some gardeners have vied with each other to produce the ideal new plant in only the tiniest of back gardens. Plants like geraniums, dianthus, nasturtium, fuchsias, petunia and many others can be grown in pots and will take up little space.

A - The ‘Selection’ Method
Many new varieties have arisen in the past from the observation of an improved or different type growing in a larger batch of plants. The more plants of one type you grow, the more chance there is of finding something different or unusual.

1. Select your plant
Be observant as you go around the garden, looking out for anything unusual, e.g. more petals than normal, some variation in flower size or colour, or differences in plant height or habit. When you see it, label the plant, describing its important characteristics (e.g. double flowers, dwarf etc.) and try to isolate it from other similar plants so that no cross-pollination occurs (see step 2).

2. Isolate your plant
Isolation prevents your special plant from being pollinated by its neighbour. This can be done by enclosing a number of flowers (still attached to the plant) within a large insectproof bag, either netting of some sort, grease-proof paper, or a plastic bag with small slits for ventilation (fig.1). Ensure there is no gap at the base of the bag for insects to get in. Use a soft wire twist or string to secure the bag but be sure not to bruise or damage the stem of the flower. Another way of isolating a plant is to carefully dig it up with minimum root disturbance, pot it on, and move it a good distance away. Be sure the plant is sufficiently watered during this process. High obstacles like a tall thick hedge form a good isolation barrier, preventing bees or other insects from cross pollinating the plants.

3. Ensuring your plants produce seed
Isolated plants or flowers will often still need to be pollinated to ensure that the seed will set. To do this, the flowers should be ‘self-pollinated’. This is when you use the same flower or a flower of the same plant to pollinate with. For instructions on pollinating, see the “how to pollinate” section. Although self-pollination naturally occurs in some plants, other types like Poppy (Papaver) or members of the Daisy (Compositae) family will not self-pollinate. This is due to self-incompatibility, an in-built mechanism in the plant that prevents self-pollination from occurring. If the plant is self-incompatible, you can select a second similar looking plant and cross the two together.

4. Harvest your seed
When the seedpod is ripe (fig.2), it is best placed with a label into a seed packet and stored in a cool, dry place. Later, the seed should be extracted, cleaned and placed in a packet labelled with the name, special characteristics of the plant and date of harvesting.

5. Further selection
The following season you should sow the seed that you have harvested. Once they germinate, prick out as many seedlings as you can, thereby increasing your chance of good results. Try to plant the seedlings away from other plants of the same type. As the plants grow and develop, pull out any that do not resemble your original selection (referred to as ‘rogues’), do this immediately before they cross-pollinate. You may be left with only a few plants which fit your aim. You could then leave the bees to cross your selections. Harvest the seed of your plants separately, for best results. The selection process may take two or more seasons. It should continue until all or most of the seed sown produces plants resembling your new type very closely.

Handy Hint
Find out as much as possible about the genus or species you are working on before you start. This is also a good way to check that there are no similar plants already in cultivation before you submit your entry.

Did you know?
Poppy ‘Angels Choir’ is a good example of the ‘eyes open’ method; the first variety of this type was actually seen growing in a field of red poppies. Wild flowers in the hedgerow or the plants in your garden may unexpectedly produce something different every so often, this is referred to as a ‘sport’.

B - The ‘Cross-Pollination’ Method
When you deliberately set out to create a new plant variety, cross-pollination is an invaluable method in breeding. As an example, you could potentially create a dwarf yellow flowered plant by crossing two plants of the same genus, maybe a tall yellow flowered plant (x) with a dwarf red flowered one (y). Or you could try crossing an annual with a perennial.

1. Making your cross
In year one, you will need to cross plant x with y or vice versa, following the pollination method shown within this guide. At the end of the season, harvest the seed.

2. Grow out your initial results
In year two, sow the results of the cross (referred to as the F1 generation) and grow in an isolated area and then harvest seed from these plants.

3. Sow the harvested seed from the cross
During the third year, you should sow out the harvested seed. This next generation (referred to as the F2) is where you should see the results of your original cross. Select plants that have the desired trait (using our above example, these would be plants that are dwarf and have yellow flowers). Once selected, the plants can be self-pollinated (pollinating the same flower with itself, or using a flower from the same plant). If they are self-incompatible, then they can be crossed with a plant with very similar characteristics.

4. Improve your variety by selection
In the subsequent years following your hybridisation, you should use the selection method to get your seed true to type. Remember to sow the seeds of individual selections separately to increase your chances of attaining seed true to type quicker.

5. If it isn't working
Sometimes you may have a problem with your desired plant trait not coming through into the offspring. You may need to ‘back-cross’ some of the crossed plant selections with the original parent (either x or y, whichever has the characteristic that you are having problems with). The term back-cross simply refers to the method by which seedlings or offspring are cross pollinated back onto one of the parents involved in the original cross.

Handy Hint
It is very important to label your plants accurately, and to also keep a small sample of seed from every stage of the breeding, in case you encounter a failure and need to retrace your breeding steps.

For more information please visit Thompson & Morgan

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Since the first seed catalogue was published in 1855, Thompson & Morgan has grown to become one of the UK's largest Mail Order Seed and Plant companies. For more details visit http://www.thompson-morgan.com